Speechless
by TheOddSoul
Summary: Two and a half years… we were fourteen… Trent Boyette was released from Juvenile Hall for the second time… It's funny how the world works.
1. Twitching Fingers

Episode needed to be watched to understand this story: Pre-school

* * *

**Speechless**

It was Friday. The first Friday of eleventh grade to be more specific, but that didn't matter. All the days were the same, just numbers. So there I was, leaning against Hells Pass Hospital in my usual all black, smoking, and I know what you're thinking, but no, I didn't go back to that faggy little goth click. I don't think they'd even let me back in after I royally served them with a Cartman quote. But anyway, just like yesterday, and the day before that, I was here, finishing my cigar before going in.

It was cold. It was always cold, it's South Park, what did I expect? But, being a little warmer or seeing the sun might have helped, because on a cloudy, soggy, day like this—that was still considered summer—didn't really give me warm, fuzzy, hopeful feelings. It felt like a good day to die, that's about it, and that was the exact opposite of what I needed right now. Not when my friend's life is on the line.

I inhaled the cigarette again as my phone went off in my front pocket. It had to be Cartman, but I really wasn't in the mood for his crap, so I let it buzz all it wanted. A few minutes and I got a text, but I didn't check that either, seeing as I was almost done. I dropped the cigar to the ground and stomped it out, but that really wasn't necessary because it landed in the snow, then got up from leaning against the building.

Inside it was warm, and even with the florescent lights killing me, it felt better than outside.

"Hello, Stanley." A familiar voice called from one of the seats I had passed on my way to the front desk.

I turn around to see who recognized me, "Oh, hi, Mrs. McCormick." I looked around for Kenny. "Is Kenny with you?"

She sighed and slumped down in her chair, "He's being taken care of, he was making hot pockets this morning and the microwave exploded."

Of course, this always seemed to happen.

I looked around again, this time trying to find a way to escape her to get on with what I was doing, "Yeah, he wasn't at school today, will he be okay?"

I bet she could tell I was in a hurry, "Yes, little Kenny should be alright, you could check on him if you'd like, he's in 314."

"Alright," I said turning back around trying to get to the receptionist,

"Stanley?" She called again. "I could go get us some oatmeal, I'll pay?"

I turned around again with a weak smile, "No thanks."

I stood watching while she got up and ran off, Kenny's mom was nice, and ever since they found Kenny's grandfather's will, giving them his three million dollars he refused to loan to any of his kids, she's always offered to get us stuff. Anything, even really expensive stuff, probably because she feels guilty she fed us waffles and we all almost died when Kenny gave us the chicken pox.

It took me a minute to remember what I was doing standing in the entrance of the hospital, but as soon as I did I dashed to the receptionist.

"Good afternoon, Stan." She said giving me a smile.

"Hi, Mrs. Dooley." I smile slightly back, their isn't much here at a hospital to smile about. "How's he doing?"

She looked back at her computer for a minute, "I don't know, you can go check."

I sighed; relieved that I was able to go see him, but also because if she didn't know how he is… that could be bad.

"Alright, thanks." I called already running for the hall.

When was the last time I was here? Yesterday. Why do I bother coming everyday? It's not like anything's going to change, "A watched pot never boils", fucking idioms. I really should be at home doing my homework, but that's what the weekend's for; no doubt I'll be spending that at this hospital too. I ran down the hall to the elevator, I might as well visit Kenny, he's room is apparently on the way, maybe I should go see him afterwards and give him the news. He probably won't say anything about what happened between him and that microwave, instead he'll just say, "How's_ he_ doing?" or "Is _he_ okay?" Whatever, I'll see Kenny later.

I came up to the elevator only to see someone taped an "Out of Order" sign to it, stairs it is. Now I might as well Kenny first. I walked over to the stairs and started climbing. Third floor here I come, I wonder what the nurses are going to have to do with all the patients in wheel chairs. The thought of seeing an old guy on crutches being pushed down the stairs amused me, but not as much as it would for Cartman. Speaking of Cartman, I reached into my pocket as I got to the second floor. Sure enough, he had called me then texted, "Sup fag u seen kenneh?"

Typical Cartman. I flipped out my keypad and began replying when I bumped into an old man in a hospital gown.

"Watch where you're goin', yah little bastard!" He growled in a raspy voice.

"Sorry." I called back starting the stairs to the third story.

I continue sending the reply to Cartman, "Hells pass dude he got blown up by a microwave", then pressed send.

I reached the third floor and started down the hall looking for 14. I found it near the end of the hall and knocked before entering.

"Kenny?" I called half hiding behind the door. "Hey, dude, I'm in the right room, aren't I?" I stepped in and closed the door behind me.

It was a little darker than I expected, but I could see Kenny, plain as day in his bed sitting up.

"Hey dude." He said with his voice muffled from the bandages wrapped all around his head, I could see his bloody parka hanging over the chair next to him and some blonde hair poking out between the bandages. "What are you doing _here_?"

I knew he didn't mean "why was I at the hospital", sometimes Kenny came with me, so he must mean "why was I in _Kenny's_ room".

There was no one else in the room so I sat down next to him; "I ran into your mom on the first floor, she told me what happened."

"Shouldn't you be somewhere else right now?" He asked trying to sit up straighter.

I frowned, I knew him too well.

"Shouldn't you be explaining what happened?"

"I really thought my mom would have filled you in on my story if you met her on your way here—" He was interrupted by my phone going off again. "Who's texting you?"

"Cartman, who else?" I asked a little too depressingly.

Kenny rolled his eyes, "What does that fat fuck want?"

"I told him you were at the hospital." I said nonchalantly while digging out my phone again.

"Why the hell did you do that? I was enjoying not having to listen to him all day, you know he's going to come down here now and give me shit." I'm guessing that if Kenny's face weren't so screwed up right now he'd look really pissed off.

"How the hell did he fit in a microwave?" I read the text allowed.

"If he weren't so fat I'd shove him in one."

"Dumb ass, kenny wasn't in a microwave. he says if u werent so fat hed shove u in one" I typed out.

Kenny burst into laughter before nearly coughing up a lung, "Hey, dude," He spoke up, "were you smoking before you came in here?"

That question really caught me off guard, "Uh, no, why?"

I know he can see right through my lie, "God, Stan, I thought you told us you weren't interested in that shit anymore."

"God dammit! I didn't come here for you to lecture me, alright?"

"Alright, hey, come on." He said trying to get me to look at him. "I don't really care if you do, just let me warn you, no girl wants to kiss a guy that smokes."

I looked back at him smirking, "Are girls the only thing you ever think about?"

"Yes, well, that and your well being."

I almost laughed, "Shouldn't you be thinking of your own well being first before mine? You're the one in the hospital."

"Yeah, yeah," he waved that off, "shouldn't you be somewhere instead of talking to me?"

Oh fuck.

"Shit, your right!" I yelled jumping off the bed and running to the door. "I'll tell you if anything happens on my way back down!" I yelled.

I ran down the hallway back to the staircase not caring when my phone exploded again when Cartman texted me back. I ran up the rest of the stairs to the fifth floor, then turned down the hall until I slowed to a walk a few doors down from room 517. Outside the room was the doctor I could spot from a mile away, Dr. Kelso.

"Afternoon, Stanley." He greeted. "Come to visit?"

"Yeah," I said, I'm not one to really beat around the bush, so I asked forcefully, "can I go in?"

"You don't have to ask me twice."

I looked down at my watch outside of the door, 4:41, August 28th, day nine hundred twenty-nine. I took hold of the knob and turned it to the right opening the door wide before taking a step in. The first thing I did was smile because the beeping of the pulse monitor sounded normal to me. I walked over slowly and leaned over at the end of the hospital bed to see how my friend looked; could have looked worse.

Kyle lay lifeless under the covers of his bed in the same position he was always in when I arrived, laying flat on his back with his body fully laid out, just like the doctors had left him. His head, neck, and arms were the only things not under the covers just like always, so seeing that nothing had changed, I went over quietly and sat in the chair next to his bed. Why was I quiet and careful? Was I afraid I might wake him up? No, that's exactly what I wanted. I wanted him to wake up. I wanted him leave the hospital so we could all be normal like before—even though we were never all that normal in the first place. But, he just lay there, practically dead.

I looked over at his face; he looked… neutral… like there was nothing wrong… but that didn't matter, he was in a coma. He didn't have facial expressions.

His parents had his hat somewhere at home, so his bright red hair really stood out in the bleach white room. Just beyond him on a counter were some cards some kids we knew made back when he first was in a coma; I could see mine near the back. Even Cartman got one for him; the inside of the store bought card was blank, so of course he wrote, "Get better soon, Jew-tard" with a swastika, but it's the thought that counts.

I looked back over at Kyle and sighed, I took his right hand in both of mine and squeezed it gently, making sure not to touch the IV; those things freak me out.

"Day nine hundred and twenty-nine…" I said allowed, I was doing it _again_. "Everyone really misses you, dude—except of course for Cartman—I'm really sorry, it was all my fault." I laughed a little then frowned. "That one day in preschool really came back to haunt us, didn't it?" I looked back up at him expecting to get a reply. "Two and a half years… we were fourteen… you know, Miss Claridge finally died."

There was a long silence where I didn't say anything; I just sat there holding his hand. A couple of minutes passed before I took out my cell phone to see what Cartman said.

"I was talking to Cartman…" I said flipping it open. "We were talking about Kenny, he's in the hospital on the third floor."

"U can tell kenneh he can suk my balls!" The text read.

I deleted it and put my phone back in my pocket to return talking to Kyle.

"It's been like an eternity… we—I—really want you to get better… and wake up." I dropped my head back down looking back at his hand. "Please… just wake up soon."

I put my left hand on top of his making a sandwich and petted it softly with the same solemn look on my face.

"I wish I could sit here forever, but my mom is always nagging me to go to school and do my homework… so, I'll stay a while longer, but I'll always be back tomorrow." A little tear prickled at the side of my right eye before falling down on his hand.

I've been worse, especially when Kyle first went into a coma two and a half years ago. I didn't go to school or anything and my parents had to drag me out of the hospital, even though normally I wouldn't touch one with a ten-foot pole. I'm better now; hospitals aren't so bad when you're not the patient. Now I just went every day after school and on the weekends, go ahead, tell me I have no life, everyone else already has. No one gets it, but it's like that song by Daughtry, "Life After You".

"Alright, I guess I'll see you tomorrow Kyle." I was about to stand and go when I felt something.

I looked down in disbelief at my hands still holding his. Did he just… move? I removed my left hand to get a better look at his and sure enough, his fingers twitched. Twice. I felt like jumping up and running around the room! Nine hundred and twenty-nine days of motionless sleep and his fingers twitched. I needed to get a diary or something just to write it down, "August 28th, Kyle's nine hundred and twenty-ninth day in a coma, his fingers moved".

I almost screamed, but instead I looked over at Kyle's face and asked eagerly, "Kyle, can you hear me?" Again, like I was going to get a response.

I quickly stood and laid his arm back down next to him on the bed thoughtfully before running out into the hallway, I had to find Dr. Kelso. Out in the hall I could see the top of his head going down the staircase before disappearing.

"Dr. Kelso! I ran down the hall after him. "Dr. Kelso!"

As I reached the stairs he looked back up at me, "What is it, Stanley? Is Kyle alright?"

I dashed down the stairs and pulled him back up to the fifth floor and down the hall to Kyle's room, "You have to come see!"

I threw open the door and ran over to Kyle's side holding up his hand for the doctor to examine.

"It was twitching." I blurted out when I noticed it wasn't doing anything anymore.

"It was?" He asked coming up to see. "Stanley, why don't you go do something while I run some tests, alright?"

I was too excited to argue, so I just bolted for the door, "I have to tell Kenny!"

I nearly tripped down all the stairs to the third floor and almost knocked over the same old man from before who was coming up them.

"Watch where you're goin', yah little bastard!" He yelled again.

"Sorry!" I yelled back turning down the hallway and exploding into Kenny's room.

"No, it's too hot! I'm not hungry!" Kenny was yelling at a nurse who was trying to feed him soup with a spoon. "Oh, hey Stan."

I was surprised that Kenny would refuse being fed by a hot nurse, but I had more important things on my mind than that right now.

"Kyle's fingers twitched!" I yelled.

Kenny blinked a couple of timed, "Are you saying he might pull out? I thought after at least two and a half years there was hardly any chance he would survive."

"I don't know, but his doctor is running some te—" I paused mid sentence pacing the room to shoot him a look. "You thought Kyle wasn't going to wake up?"

He shrugged, "Two years is a long time, Stan, you didn't think for just one second he might not make it?"

I was going to rip his head off for that one once he left the hospital, but for now I had to focus on what was really going on.

"Kenny, he might wake up soon!" I yelled. "I need to go home, I have to call the Broflovski's, I need to buy a diary!"

"What the hell's the diary for?" He asked.

"For smacking you when you get out of those bandages, King Tut." I said sarcastically then ran out the door.

"Who the hell is King Tut?" Kenny asked when I was gone.

I actually tripped going down the rest of the stairs this time, but I didn't care. I needed to call somebody, anybody. I flipped open my phone and went through my contacts.

"Butters? No. Clyde? No. Wendy? Why do I still have her number?" She broke up with me about a month after Kyle went to the hospital because she said I cared more about him than her, she was right and all, but I always cared more about Kyle. "Cartman? He'll have to do…" I pressed talk and waited for him to answer.

"Stan?" There was some kind of weird background noise going on.

"Cartman! You'll never guess what happened!"

"I know, right? How could Shakie's be closing? They had fucking awesome pizza!"

My smile immediately disappeared.

"Fuck you, Cartman." I yelled.

"What? You on your period or something, Stan?"

I really wasn't in the mood; "I'm hanging up."

"Fine, fine! What's so important that I need to know?" I could tell now that background noise was his TV, and he was probably eating Cheezy Poofs the way he was talking.

"Kyle might wake up soon!" I beamed as I exited the hospital back into the cold.

"The Jew! Fuck, you just had to go and ruin my whole day, damn it!" I tried not to laugh. "Why couldn't Trent Boyette have hit him harder!"

My laughing stopped and my smile disappeared for the second time that conversation. He just had to bring it up.

"Don't say that, fat ass! You're lucky he didn't come after you! That would have done us all a favor!" I yelled into the phone before hanging up.

I ran across the parking lot to my parent's car and jumped inside blowing some air into my hands to warm them up once I was seated behind the wheel. Two and a half years… we were fourteen… Trent Boyette was released from Juvenile Hall for the second time…

Now he was in jail for thirty years, I was in depression, Cartman was in Wendy's vagina, Kenny was in a mansion, and Kyle was still in a coma. It's funny how the world works.


	2. Staring Eyes

I just want to say one thing before the second chapter starts; Dr. Kelso is not based on any Scrubs character or anything related to Scrubs, it was a complete coincidence. I named him after one of my friends, sorry for the misunderstanding.

* * *

We all stood around the waiting room on the fifth floor, and by we I meant my parents, Kyle's parents, and Ike. It was, and I was just guessing, five in the morning on Saturday, day nine hundred and thirty. Dr. Kelso told us not to go in Kyle's room yet, he had yet to appear and give us the news on Kyle's status. My parents looked pretty normal, seeing as it wasn't their son who was in a coma, Mrs. Broflovski was pacing around nervously while her husband tried to calm her down, Ike was the one that scared me. He sat in his chair looking like everything was right in the world absorbed in his book that freaked me out even more; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I saw that movie, and now was not a good time to take a stroll down memory lane, and especially not down _that_ road.

Dr. Kelso took his time getting to us, but the second he reappeared out from behind Kyle's door, I cut him off before he could give us the scoop.

"Can I see him?" I blurted out.

Dr. Kelso nodded to me then went on to the adults and Ike who, fortunately, had put down the book. I ran over to the room, I'll hear the report later, and opened the door, expecting to see Kyle fully awake and well, but there he was. Like always, laid down flat on the bed with his head, neck, and arms the only things above the covers, still in a coma. I was very disappointed, but noticing his fingers twitch from across the room gave me hope. I hurried over and sat next to him taking hold of the same hand as yesterday and clutching it close to me.

"You're going to be all right, Kyle, you're going to wake up soon I hope." I whispered as the rest of them filed in the room.

"Yes, so Kyle might become conscious again within next week, it might take longer, but without a doubt he can probably hear us right now." Dr. Kelso said holding open the door, as Ike was the last one to enter.

I looked over at Kyle and his fiery red hair; he _was_ going to be all right.

"How long before he's able to leave the hospital?" I heard Mrs. Broflovski ask.

"Depending on when he wakes up and his condition, it might be weeks, months, if it's really bad maybe years." He went over to his computer in the corner of the room. "But before he really wakes up, he'll go through phases between consciousness and unconsciousness."

"Stanley, Sharon and Randy," Mr. Broflovski spoke up, "would you mind if we spent some time with our son alone?"

"That's completely fine with us." Mom said speaking for all of us like she always did. "Stanley, why don't you go talk with Kenny?"

I looked back at Kyle, I really didn't want to leave him after just two minutes, but if his family wanted to be alone with him, I guess I can't really argue. Besides, if Kenny's being an ass, I could just go out and smoke. I slowly placed Kyle's hand down on his chest and walked out with my parents before going off on my own down the hall to see Kenny.

"Call my cell when they say it's okay to come back!" I yelled.

"Alright!"

I skipped merrily down the stairs, not caring who saw me; I didn't even care if Cartman was there to see me. Kyle was going to wake up and I was happy. I wonder what was the last thing we talked about was; it was two years ago just before Trent got out… I remember something about Butters, Wendy, and sexuality, but that was it. Then again, I also remember being an ass hole and screwing everything up. Then Kyle was in the hospital and I had a breakdown. The rest were just numbers; the numbers of the days going by.

I turned down the hallway on the third floor and flung Kenny's door open to step inside.

"Well, hiya, Stan!" Wow, I wasn't expecting Butters to be sitting next to Kenny on his bed.

"Hiya, Butters." I mumbled back.

"Stan!" Kenny called patting the spot on the other side of him telling me to sit down. "How's our favorite little red head?"

My smile immediately returns when I remembered why I came, "He's got a strong chance of pulling out within next week!" I scurried over and slid in next to him.

"Well, that's great, Stan!" Butters said smiling. "I-I bet everyone at school'll be real happy to see him again."

"Yeah, _most_ everyone." Kenny obviously meant Cartman.

I laughed a little looking across the room at the door. It was still really dark in Kenny's room; just the light above the bed was on. I turned my head to see them looking at each other and whispering.

"So," I said getting their attentions, "Butters, you're here early."

Kenny looked back at Butters like he had no idea.

"Uh, well…" He trailed of. "If my parents found out I had gone out to see Kenny when I was grounded… they'd ground me again!"

I sighed, typical Butters.

"The doctors say I might be back in school on Monday." Kenny changed the subject.

"Yeah, that'd be nice." I sighed. "I actually had to sit with Cartman on Friday."

"You could have just sat with me—"

Kenny quickly interrupted Butters, "Woe, seriously?" I nodded. "Fucking weak, dude. Was Wendy with him?"

"When is she not?" I spat. "Can we not talk about her?"

Kenny sighed and turned back to Butters.

"Do you still like her, Stan?" Butters asked.

"What? Sorry, I was…" I looked up at him after I thought our conversation was over. "No, I don't… it's just, I mean—she really changed. Maybe it was school, or hormones, or something else… she kind of… lost it."

"You can say that again." Kenny groaned.

After Wendy broke up with me, she lost her "fight against breast cancer" and "anti-racism" mind. She went fucking ballistic and Cartman took advantage of her, then he decided somewhere along the line that dating her and telling her he loved her would have some kind of affect on me. Even after I stopped caring, he still went along with it. She even joined him on his cause of wiping out all the Jews. For Halloween she wasn't even Chubaka, she was a fucking Nazi. All her friends left her and she punched Clyde in the nose, and now all she has is that fat ass.

"So, how is Kyle again?" Kenny asked waking me up from my thoughts.

"Oh yeah, well, they say he could pull out sometime next week, but they're not really sure." I repeated from before.

Butters smiled, "When he does, you should get him to play his guitar for us, he's got a really great voice."

I nodded, "Alright."

"Wait, wait, hold the phone!" Kenny yelled. "He's in a coma, a **fucking coma**, people don't just go back to their normal lives like in movies."

"They don't?" Butters and I asked in unison.

"No, dumb ass movie directors don't know dick about comas. Shouldn't you know something about them?" He was asking me.

I paused trying to take it in, "Not really, I just thought…"

"Thought that everything would be the same? Dude, some people can't even move when they wake up. You need to get real. You're like the only kid at school who thought he was going to make it. This isn't a fucking game, Stan, Kyle's in a coma, and you know—actually, you don't know—how those work; either you wake up or you don't, but odds are, after two and a half fucking years, you won't." He yelled.

I stood slowly while shaking my head, "It's not about odds, it's about hope. No one thought he was going to live!"

"We were just being realistic—"

"You just don't care!" I screamed running from the room back to the hallway to lean up against the wall opposite of Kenny's door to calm down. I felt like bashing his already blown up head in, god dammit I need a smoke. I started down the stairs to the first story when I heard a voice calling from the hallway.

"Stan! Stan, wait!"

I turned back around reluctantly to see Butters standing at the top of the stairs.

"What do you want?" I asked a little more bitterly than I wanted to sound.

He walked down a few stairs to be next to me, "Kenny didn't mean what he said, h-he really does miss Kyle, honestly he does, i-it's just he doesn't really know what to say, you know? H-he said he did some reading on the… the Internet." He pronounced it without the 't' which kind of bothered me. "He just wanted to… to prepare you for what ya see when Kyle w-wakes up."

I sighed, I was still mad as hell, but the kid meant well, so I might as well meet him halfway.

"Well… I don't really know…" I sighed again. "I was just going out to smoke, so…"

"Kenny told me about… about that too." I nodded, just like Kenny. "C-can I come with?"

I kind of jumped when I heard him ask that, but then he continued.

"No-not to smoke or anything, just to… get out of this hospital for a minute." He assured me.

"Sure, no problem." I continued down the stairs leading the way.

A blast of cold air hit us when I opened the front door, and some people sitting in chairs near the door started shivering and huddling together so we made our way quickly out into the freezing cold morning. My hands immediately dug into my pockets for my pack and my dad's lighter I stole from his camping gear. He never even goes camping so he won't miss it.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you smoking was b-bad?" Butters asked shivering.

"Just about everyone." I said lighting the cigar.

"I-if I started smoking, my parents would ground me for sure!"

"Yeah, mine too." I agreed, laughing.

I looked over at him expecting him to laugh with me, but he looked worried.

"Hey what's up?" I asked trying to sound like I cared.

"You mean your parents don't know?"

"_Pheh_," I grunted, "no one knows."

We were silent for a long time, I was kind of enjoying not talking and just thinking about the stuff I had wanted to do with Kyle ever since he went into a coma. Skate at Stark's Pond, pull pranks on Cartman, see movies, pull pranks on Cartman, watch Terrence and Phillip reruns, pull pranks on Cartman, pull pranks on Cartman, and pull pranks on Cartman. It seemed like after Kyle was out of his way, he grew more bitchy and sadistic. It would feel nice to get him back.

"W-we should get you some help." Butters said quietly. "You could get addicted and start to smell like cigarettes, then your parents would find out and they'd tell my parents and then I'd be grounded."

"Butters, shut the hell up." I said jokingly, but it was plainly obvious he had been thinking about it seriously, so I assured him. "I'm not addicted, I can stop when ever I want to."

"That's what they all say… If you can stop, then stop now."

I groaned, "I said I can if I want to, and right now, I don't really want to. I need something to help me cope with what Kyle's going through. It makes me feel better."

There was another silence.

"What will Kyle think when he wakes up and finds out?"

The question hit me like a pile of bricks; I never thought about what Kyle's reaction would be, and he defiantly won't like it.

"Oh god, I need to quit." I breathed.

I threw down my cigarette and stomped it out even though it still had a good few minutes left. I grabbed Butters and headed back inside and towards the stairs when my phone went off. I stopped suddenly to get it out and he accidentally ran into me, but I didn't care. I recognized my mom's number and flipped open the phone.

"Hi, Mom, what's going on?"

"Oh, nothing, the Broflovski's and us are going out for breakfast, did you want to come with us?" She asked on the other end of the line.

"Uh, no, thanks." I said looking around.

I could hear her say to them that I had reclined the offer.

"Well, alright, we'll bring you back something, okay? They say you can go see Kyle now."

"Oh, alright. I'll see you later then."

"Alright honey, bye-bye."

I quickly hung up the phone and started running for the stairs with Butters behind me trying to keep up.

"Uh, Stan, I'm going to go back to Kenny's room, okay? He gets lonely in there."

I stopped and turned around, "Don't you want to see Kyle? I'm sure Kenny can get a nurse to come in and keep him com—"

"I'll see Kyle later, I just want to see Kenny." He cut me off before dashing up the stairs in front of me.

"Alright." I groaned for the billionth time that morning.

I hurried up all the stairs past floor three where Kenny—and no doubt Butters—was and past the Broflovski's and my parents who were coming down. I ran down the hall to room 517 and seeing that Dr. Kelso was not in sight I let myself in.

No one but Kyle was in the room again, and like before; still zip, nada, nothing, fucking coma. I took my time getting to my regular seat next to his bed, not like I was in a hurry. The first thing I noticed was his hand was right were I left it, on top of his chest, so—like always—I took it and held it close like it was my lifeline between me and a fiery pit of lava, but, duh, I'm exaggerating. If it were really like that I would have probably crushed his hand with my grip, ha ha.

I always had a problem with talking out loud when I was in the hospital room with Kyle, of course _now_ he can hear me, but it was a habit.

And old habits break hard… "Butters is with Kenny on the third floor, they've really grown inseparable ever since you were in a coma and I started spending all my time here. Also probably because Cartman began investing all his time into Wendy. She still hates me, but I don't give a shit, so…" I sighed. "Kenny is really scaring me with all the 'research' he's been doing on comas. He talks about people who wake up and can't move, like they're a vegetable or something…" I kind of laughed because I thought of a giant cucumber in a hospital bed being feed by a nurse. "I really hope you can wake up soon, I know you've probably heard me say that before and all—or maybe you haven't—but I really want you to get better and not be a fucking veggie."

After ending that sentence I found myself accidentally humming the Veggie Tales theme song to myself. I stopped when I felt his fingers twitch again. Maybe we could work out some Morris Code think while Kyle's in a coma, but that probably wouldn't work; how would he learn Morris Code? How would I? That didn't matter, he was going to wake up. He is going to wake up and be happy and well, and he won't be a vegetable. He couldn't be, we had to stay together forever. Super best friends. It's like the fucking law or something. I don't break laws—except for a little drinking and some stuff the guys and I did in the school bathroom back in middle school.

But still, what if Kyle isn't okay? What if he is a vegetable? I could hear Kenny's words repeat in my mind, "This isn't a fucking game, Stan, Kyle's in a coma", "You need to get real", "You're like the only kid at school who thought he was going to make it". That last one really got to me for some reason. It's not about the likely hood of surviving, I said it before, and I'll say it again; it's about hope.

This is crazy, I just have to stay positive, he'll be all right, and it'll be like old times—almost. I wonder how he's going to react when he sees how muck things have changed, and in some cases, how much some stuff has stayed the same. He'd probably go ape shit when he heard about Cartman and Wendy, but whatever; we could laugh at them together.

I found myself running my left hand through his hair a minute later; I did that sometimes too. It was like a security thing; like in books or whatever they always say stuff like 'and their body was so cold'. Kyle wasn't cold. He felt… normal? But it was always reassuring to just brush my hand against his forehead and check.

I kind of felt lazy just letting my arm go limp and putting all it's weight resting on him, but I don't think he'd mind. I just leaned in closer to get a better look at his face kind of twitch, but it made me feel like the fucking prince from Sleeping Beauty or something. If kissing someone were enough to wake them up from a coma… it wouldn't be day nine hundred thirty. More like two point five seconds. Or something…

But what the hell am I talking about, this might be South Park, as in crazy, talking taco shitting ice cream South Park, but that was _really _pushing the limits.

I could actually hear him take in a deeper breath than usual and hold it in like he knew something was going on. I sat back up straight in my chair and just watched him breath in and out, let me tell you, it would have been easier to see if he didn't have those stupid tubes up his nose and just about everything else. I looked down at his right hand and fiddled with the hospital bracelet that had never came off. It had just his name, a bar code, and a date from two and a half years ago.

I sighed and turned back to look at his face that—even under those annoying florescent lights—looked totally flawless. God, this was like some faggy Telenovela where Kyle and I are just actors and we're both demanding lattes in our minds and are coated with makeup. Shit, even that sounds better than the situation I'm in now. But none the less, even after what had to be, at lease two and a half years without a shower, he looked amazing, as in 'glowing with health', but if I said that I'd be totally off.

I was kind of upset when I felt my phone go off from my pocket, I pulled it out quickly to see it was Butters.

'How's Kyle?'

The way he texted so formally was somewhat soothing and annoying at the same time, but that doesn't matter so I just replied.

'Hes fine'

I turned back to Kyle, "I'm talking to Butters, he asked if you were alright."

His eyes clenched tightly for a second like he was just closing his eye tighter, but my gaze was torn from him back to my phone to read Butters' message.

'I wanna see him take a pic with your phone and send it to us'

'No way assholes come up here and see him urself' I punched out, but taking a photo wouldn't hurt.

I scooted from the chair to sitting on the edge of Kyle's bed then laid down next to him, letting our arms and hair touch a little, then I made the saddest face I could and snapped a picture while holding my phone high above us. I decided after a while it was worth sending, so I did.

And, inevitably, Butters had to text me back after a few minute, 'Sad. We're trying to get Kenny to get out of bed. He's so stubborn'

I laughed a little before turning my head left. I couldn't laugh when I looked at Kyle; he was just so… damn depressing. Two inches from his face and I could see in his expression he was sad… or maybe that was just my imagination. I cleared my throat before replying to Butters message as if to try to clear the air of the sudden awkwardness that was me still laying next to him.

'Does that mean he can come up here and c us?' I asked as I got up from the bed and sat down in my chair.

'I don't think so' His reply finally came.

I sighed and looked back at Kyle, "It'll be alright. I won't leave 'til you wake up."

I could see in his expression he looked almost at peace, or maybe that was just me again? Didn't really matter. I deleted the message and put my phone away into my pocket to give my full attention to Kyle again.

"I know your going to throw a fit when you wake up and find out I've started smoking again, so I'm going to quit before you wake up. I'm going to change, so please don't be too harsh." I kind of half-laughed. "I want to stop, even though I just decided today, but I want you to be as comfortable as you can when you come back. I really want you to know how much we—I—missed you."

I found myself clasping his hand in my own again in the middle of one of my sentence, I'd probably never grown out of that habit by now; two and a half years of repetition will do that to you. I also found myself leaning forward again slightly looking at his eyes twitch a little.

Then, without warning, the twitching stopped and I saw his eyelids lightly slide half open, revealing two sleepy, grey-green eyes that seemed to stare off into space. I was so in the moment I forgot to go insane. He slowly moved his eyes to the right to look at me, and I could see his lips move to form one word before his eyes slowly closed again delivering him back to his un-wake-able sleep.

'Stan.' He had mouthed.

Like I said before, I was too surprised and excited to go insane, and I still was.

"Kyle?" I stood and shook him. "Kyle! Kyle, wake up!" It was like he had fallen into a coma all over again, I think I remember saying the exact same things when I first walked into this hospital room nine hundred thirty days ago.

When I gave up and went with the idea that this was what Dr. Kelso had meant when he said "phases between consciousness and unconsciousness", that's when I went crazy.

"KYLE WOKE UP!" I yelled running out the door down the hall. "HE LOOKED AT ME!"

I ran down the stares landing on every second step until the third floor, then went bursting through Kenny's door.

"Hey Stan, what's up? Sounded like you were on a rampage the way you went thundering down the hall, we could hear you from all the way in here." Kenny said looking up from his piece of paper.

No doubt the whole "try to get Kenny out of bed" plan failed; it looked like they were playing soduko or something.

Shaking that thought out of my head I dashed up to his side and ripped the paper out of his hand and tossed it to the side.

"W-well, jeez Stan, that wasn't very nice…" Butters spoke up.

"THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT, BUTTERS!" I screamed.

"Fuck, someone's got their nuts in a knot." Kenny sighed shaking his head that was still smothered in bandages, but it was nice to see that they had been changed from the bloody ones to clean new ones.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I asked referring to what Kenny said.

He smiled, "It's my version of Cartman's favorite fraise; 'There's sand in your vagina'."

"Beside the point—"

"You were the one who asked." Kenny shrugged.

I gave him the best glare I could manage at the moment, but he did just as good ignoring me and went back to Butters as they talked about some stupid commercial on TV.

"Kyle woke up, guys." I said almost to myself while the blabbered one aimlessly, but my words made it across somewhere seeing as they both fell silent and Kenny asked me to repeat myself. "I said Kyle woke up."

"What?" Kenny asked like I had just said he was finally going to stop dying.

"You heard me."

They looked at each other with wide eyes like they were trying to send each other telepathic messages or something. Then Kenny turned back to me.

"Then why are you down here?"

I stood kind of still for a moment letting what he said sink in, "Fuck, you're right!"

I bolted out the door to find Dr. Kelso, dashing back up the stairs skipping to every third stair. I found him strolling down the hall of the fifth floor, no doubt to Kyle's room, but I stopped him before he could get any closer.

"DR. KELSO!" I screamed nearly crashing into him.

"Stanley? What's wrong?"

"Come on! Come on! You have to see!" I yelled pulling him down the hall to Kyle's room, and then I flung the door open wildly. "He opened his eyes! He looked at me!"

Dr. Kelso stayed by the door as I ran over to Kyle's side to get a good look at him.

"You mean he woke up?" He asked finally coming over to the other side of the bed.

"Kind of," I let my eyes skim all over Kyle's face searching for a sign he had waken up, "he did for a few seconds then fell back asleep."

I looked up at Dr. Kelso who was frozen again, then ran around to grab a clipboard and a pen on the counter against the wall behind him.

"You said he woke up and looked at you?" He asked with the pen hovering above the paper ready to write. "Is that all?"

"No, no." I sat down to catch my breath. "He also said my name."

"…He said your name?"

I shook my head, "No, actually he didn't _say_ it, he just formed my name with his lips, like he mouthed it."

I sat looking at Kyle's emotionless face waiting for a reply from Dr. Kelso; unfortunately, his reply was the one I hoped he wouldn't say.

"Stanley, I'm going to need to run some more tests, so if you could leave for a while, it would be very appreciated." I nodded; anything to help Kyle. "But," Now he was scaring me, "I don't think you should come see him again until he's fully awake, alright? It would just make things easier for us—for Kyle."

I sighed, "How long do you think it might be…?"

"Maybe a week, maybe less, maybe more, it depends."

I knew even if I said no it wouldn't matter, so I might as well not fight it.

"Alright…"


	3. Dragging Days

I never did buy a diary. It kind of slipped my mind… so did taking a shower for about week, so naturally, the first thing I did after coming home on Saturday morning day nine hundred thirty was take a shower. I swear there was nothing else in the world that could have felt better. After I was clean I spent the rest of the day on the Internet looking at stories of people waking up from comas. That was probably the reason I had a nightmare that night of Kyle waking up when I wasn't there and just saying, "Where's Stan? Where's Stan?" over and over again.

It freaked me out so much, that when I woke up, I immediately ran out the door all the way down to the hospital. I didn't even give myself enough time to get fully dress, I just put on a pair of pants and a coat; not my best idea. So by the time I got to Hell's Pass, I was frozen solid, but I ran up the stairs as fast as I could and stormed down the hall to Kyle's room. I was going to go in, but Dr. Kelso was in the doorway blocking it.

He said something along the lines of, "Stanley? What are you doing here? I thought we agreed I'd call yours and Kyle's parents when he was fully awake."

I'm pretty sure I just turned around and walked home.

The next day at school was normal. Kenny was still in the hospital, so I had nothing to entertain me in history, and during lunch I had to sit with Butters, who also sat with Craig and his gang. Yeah, they were alright—in an annoying, pissy-ass kind of way—but no one could come close to Kyle—but I do admit; Clyde accidentally knocking over Tweek's thermos getting boiling hot coffee all over Craig was pretty funny. If it were me, I would have socked him in the eye, but being Craig, he just flipped him the bird and went on with cleaning up the mess. Those guys really haven't changed very much.

The only thing about them that really got to me was Token always making a point to ask every thirty minutes or so what day it was again.

Monday was no exception.

I remember him asking, "So, Stan, what day was it again?"

So I said something like, "Nine hundred thirty-two, dipshit."

Then he said, "Poor Kyle, when did they say they were going to cut him loose? A few more weeks?"

"Go fuck Clyde, Token."

That was our normal "How are you?" kind of greeting. What an asshole. He lost the title "rich kid", that was now Kenny, now he was "black kid".

The rest of lunch I caught little glimpses of Cartman with Wendy pinned against the lockers every time someone went in our out of the cafeteria. Where the hell were the teachers when this kind of shit happened? Sure they always seemed to catch us when me and some of the guys smoke behind the school, but when Cartman's nailing Wendy right in the middle of the hallway no one notices? _Pheh_, what did I expect?

They could have their fucked up little orgasm; I didn't give any Dr. Mophesto multiple assed rats' asses. Yeah, because just saying "a rat's ass" isn't fun enough.

Butters and I visited Kenny after school that day; of course I tried to get into Kyle's room, but no avail from Dr. Kelso. So, Kenny, Butters, and I rambled on and on about stupid TV commercials and what I saw Cartman and Wendy doing in the halls during school.

"That fat fuck just can't keep his pea-size dick in his pants." I remembered Kenny saying.

The next day, nine hundred thirty-three, wasn't much better. Kenny still wasn't back in school and three of my teachers gave us our first long-term assignment of the new year. I was really hopping Kyle would pull out soon, then we could get him caught up on his school work and back in classes with me. We could just complain about the homework or something. I didn't go down to the hospital that day; I had to get started on my projects.

Wednesday was okay; Kenny came back to school with his bandages still all over his face. Of course that attracted the flock of girls to circle around him all day and ask him if he was okay, or if it hurt. Why couldn't they get a life? Maybe I wanted to talk to Kenny, but even during lunch at our table together he was still preoccupied with the images of their boobs all around him, just waiting to be groped. God, he's annoying sometimes. Not even Butters could make him snap out of it.

Day nine hundred thirty-four, a.k.a. Thursday Kenny was back to normal. Almost. We talked some about things we could do when Kyle woke up and about Red's party. Yes, the party she throws every time she catches her dad with a hooker. He lets he have these wild parties so her mom doesn't find out. Everyone was always invited, and it generally happened two or three times a year, I guess it was coming up again. I probably won't go, everyone but me always ends up drunk, so the day after everyone comes to me asking something along the lines of, "Did I say anything about a dead body?" or "So-and-so said I had sex with someone-else, did that really happen?" I have to say I've always managed to screw everyone over by never giving anyone a right answer. It was seriously entertaining. I remember a year ago almost; Pip asked me if he was the vessel of the antichrist's son's son. I couldn't help but say he was; turns out, **he was**.

…No I'm just kidding, he wasn't, but I've never called him a "Twat-faced virgin" since, and that is pretty degrading. I mean, I'm still a virgin, and Pip isn't. Hell, neither is Cartman, even if it was with Wendy! And, if I had to guess, I'd bet Craig wasn't even a virgin anymore, and I don't know who the hell would find him sexy… Twee—no, I won't even think about that.

Friday was just plain annoying. Yeah, school was fine, but my parents made me come straight home because they were going to dinner with the Broflovski's and I had to babysit Ike. The kid was like in seventh grade or something, why did I have to watch him? I guess we could go down to the hospital, but as long as Dr. Kelso wouldn't let us in, there was no point in that. So there I was, walking home from school, day nine hundred thirty-five, a week since Kyle's fingers started twitching, and I was cold. I was very damn cold, thank you very much. It was so cold with the wind blowing at forty miles and hour, that I would have surely died of hypothermia if Kyle's house wasn't fifteen minutes from the high school.

When I made it to the porch and rang the bell, I could hear inside my parents were already there; seriously, who decides to go out to dinner at three in the afternoon? But anyway, they were here, and when Mr. Broflovski opened the door, I could see them sitting at the kitchen table in their fancy clothes.

"Come on in, Stanley, Ike is up in his room." Mr. Broflovski held the door open for me.

"Uh, thanks." I said heading for the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, Kyle's room is the first one on the right, then Ike's, and at the end of the hall on the left is their parent's room, so passing his door was inevitable. It was also left wide open, just begging me to come in and look around. I hadn't been in Kyle's room since the accident, so it took a while before I remembered all the history of the stuff on his shelves. I really couldn't help but take a step inside; his whole room really smelled like Kyle. All his stuff lay untouched where he left it and his bed was still made from the morning Trent was released.

I wasn't actually there, so I couldn't tell you exactly what happened, but from what I heard from the kids at school was he ran into Trent after school that day and got his brains bashed out with a baseball bat. Now, obviously that wasn't true, but he did get beat up pretty nasty from all the bruises and cuts he had back then. But again, I couldn't tell you, I wasn't there. I wasn't even told by a doctor, or my parents, or his parents. I got told by fucking Red. And if anyone knows Red, they know that she lies, and spreads gossip like she spreads her lip gloss; all over. So naturally, I didn't believe her, then, that night, my parents told me the Broflovski's had just called saying Kyle hadn't come home.

I ran as fast as I could down to Hell's Pass to find him breathing through a tube in a coma on a stretcher. He was purple, and bloody, and broken, and **fucking disemboweled**. And I had to run while they wheeled his body into the back of the ER and see it. I will admit, I love his guts and whatever else was spewed all over the place that night, but that's defiantly not why I lost my lunch. Now of course he was all sewn up and fixed, and not bruised, but he was still in a coma. And I swore that day I first saw him on that stretcher, day one, that if Trent Boyette ever lived to step foot out of that prison, I'd make him wish he'd died there a long time ago.

I sulked over remembering day one and laid myself out on his bed. It was 110% softer than mine was, and it smelled 111% more like Kyle than the rest of the room. I turned myself over on my back to bury my head in his pillow and I let out a big moan.

My moment alone with Kyle pillow was cut short as a knock on his doorframe met my ears. I looked up reluctantly to see Ike standing in his doorway looking down at the ground. He looked really sad and alone, and like he hadn't slept in days. His right hand was still up in the air next to the doorframe like he was going to knock again, his left arm lay by his side with Kyle's hat wadded up tightly in his grasp.

"Hi Stan…" He said in a low voice.

I sat up straighter on Kyle's bed letting go of his pillow.

"Hi Ike, what's up?"

He walked over slowly and plopped down on the bed next to me, but he still wouldn't look at me. He was fiddling with Kyle's hat still in his hands, and then he held it out for me to take.

"Nothing…"

"Hey," I took the hat from him, "Kyle's going to wake up, you should be happy."

He sighed, "I know… but my parents didn't cancel their trip… they still want me to go."

He was talking about his parent's plan to go to Denver to visit relatives they had booked about a month in advance. I guess they didn't really think Kyle would wake up either.

"When are they leaving again?" I asked leaning over to look him in they eye.

"…Sunday…"

I was almost shocked, "Really, that soon? When are you getting back?"

"…Wednesday…"

"Oh…" We sat there on Kyle's bed for a few minutes before I heard my mom calling from down stairs.

"Stan! Ike! We're leaving now! We'll see you around eleven!"

"Alright." I yelled from my seat.

We sat there quietly until I heard the front door slam shut, then I got up and headed to the door. I passed Kyle's desk before walking out; on top were his computer and some books. I stopped walking and looked at some of the titles.

Not much interesting stuff, some fiction novels, an old textbook.

I put down Kyle's hat that was still in my hand on the desk and continued towards the door, but Ike spoke up stopping me, "You can keep it if you'd like." He said almost to himself.

I turned around and looked at Kyle's hat that lay motionless on the desk. He couldn't possibly mean that, could he?

"Kyle's hat?" I asked pointing at it.

He nodded, his eyes still glued to the carpet.

"But it's Kyle's."

"Yeah, and if he wakes up before we get back he might want it."

This was depressing. This scene, this situation, this conversation, all of it. It was also kind of annoying, because I wasn't in a bad mood, and I wasn't in the mood to be in a bad mood, so I really wanted to end the conversation there and go home.

But, I found myself saying nonsense, "It's just 3:30, you want to go out and do something?" I asked looking down at my watch after grabbing Kyle's hat again.

He sighed for a minute, then got up and started for the door; "Can we watch TV?"

"Sure."

We didn't watch Terrence and Phillip. We watched NCIS and all those other creepy cop shows Ike seemed to be fascinated with. I ended up excusing myself several times each episode to go procrastinate from watching it. I made about five buckets of popcorn in one hour and camped out in the bathroom five minutes a turn for three turns an episode, but he was so hypnotized by the screen he hardly noticed.

Finally, he lost interest when some ghost show came on, then it was around seven, so I went to the pantry to find something for us for dinner. We settled on macaroni, the one with the noodles shaped like cartoon character's heads. We didn't talk much when we were eating, but afterwards I convinced him we should prank call people. You know, to get him to loosen up a bit.

He called me _juvenile_, but still agreed. Now we just had to decide our first victim.

He finally chose this one kid in his class that had been bothering him lately, so I punched in *67 then his number and waited for him to pick up.

"Ike, do you know what kind of phone he has?" I asked before he picked up.

"Uh, Sprint, I think."

"Hello?" I heard the kid answer after a few rings.

"Uh, yes, this is a Sprint Service Agent calling about your service connection. Yes, it seems that your line has been distorted, we are sorry for the inconvenience."

"Uh… okay?"

I went on, "We hope to fix this problem now, I just need to run a sound check through this line, all you need to do is repeat exactly what I say into your phone."

"Uh… alright."

I put the phone on speaker so Ike could hear, "Alright; I would like to purchase a muffin."

He paused for a minute; "I would like to purchase a muffin."

"I do not know what Chris is doing."

"I don't know what Chris is doing."

I handed the phone to Ike so he could give it a try, "Uh, I'll bring the body by midnight."

He paused again, "I'll bring the body by midnight."

We really weren't expecting him to be this gullible, so we both had to take a minute to stop laughing before Ike removed his hand from the phone's speaker.

"No, I would not like to buy some coke." I started us again.

"No, I wouldn't like to buy some coke."

There was a long pause; we could hear some woman in the background shouting at him. We burst into laughter again when we heard him trying to explain the situation to what we had figured out by now was his mother.

I immediately hung up and turned to Ike who was still laughing really loudly.

"Ready for the next one?" I asked getting out our school directory.

He nodded, "Let's do one of your friends."

I flipped through a couple of pages until I found some kid named Brandon and dialed his number. I put the phone back on speaker and shushed Ike who was becoming restless.

"Hello?" He asked after picking up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Yes?"

"Yes, who is calling?" I asked.

He paused for a moment; "You were the one who called me."

"No, you called me, now state your name or I'm gonna hang up!"

I got the dial tone a second later and Ike and I burst into laughter again.

"How do you do those!" He asked.

I just shrugged, "Here, wait a few minutes, then we'll call him back."

We sat there looking at the clock until a few minutes had passed, then I punched in the number again furiously.

"Hello?" He asked.

"Hello? Stop calling me, or I'll report you to the police!" I yelled then hung up.

"I want to try next!" Ike grabbed for the phone.

I held it high above my head out of his reach so he couldn't get it, "Now, Ike, prank calling is a very complicated sport to master, just let me warn you, no one likes being prank called, and no one likes getting caught, alright?"

He stopped reaching for it for a minute to give me a hard glare, "Just give me the damn phone and give me the damn directory."

I handed both to him wondering who he was going to call, one of my friends? I looked over and saw him punch in Kenny's cell phone number, then put it on speaker.

"Kenny?" I asked quietly as it started to ring.

"Yeah, now _shhhh_."

"Hello?" A voice that wasn't Kenny's answered the phone.

"Uh, yeah, hi." Ike said using a very good falsetto. "Uh, is this Kenny?"

"No, this is Butters."

Of course, now I recognized the voice.

"Uh, yeah, is Kenny there?"

"Uh, no… he's busy right now, I could take a message, I guess…"

Ike sighed, "Alright, tell him it's his bitch, Kayla, and he got me pregnant."

I had to cover my mouth to keep from bursting out screaming Ike was pretty good for a first timer. After that, Butters hung up on us, and Ike and I had a pretty good night. I took him up to his room around ten, then I was going to go back downstairs to watch TV, but I couldn't help but go in Kyle's room again. Ike and I were having such a good time, I completely forgot about him.

I sauntered in quietly, making sure not to bump into anything, then sat back down on his bed. It was soooooo comfy… I was having trouble staying awake.

I woke up the next morning snuggled up with one of Kyle's pillows the next morning. I don't remember actually getting in his bed, but I woke up under his covers curled up with one of his giant pillows under me, now it was all wet with slobber and shit. And it smelled really strongly of him… I just wanted to lay there forever, but eventually Mrs. Broflovski came up and got me out of bed and down the road back to my house.

I wasn't thinking about the previous night, and the prank calls or anything, I had my mind set on Kyle, like last night didn't exist at all. I mean, it practically didn't because any memory or thought in my mind that isn't about Kyle is automatically erased from existence.

It was cold again that morning, so I shoved my hands in my coat pockets to keep them warm while I walked, and I found Kyle's hat.

It was all balled up in my pocket and really warm, so I took it out and pressed it to my face. It really smelled like Kyle. It smelled nice.

When I got to my house I didn't go up the driveway to the front door, I kept walking into town to the nearest bookstore and bought a diary.

Sunday was boring; my parents took me all the way to North Park to see an art museum. The train ride there was long enough, I was just hoping Kyle wouldn't wake up until we got home at least. The Broflovski's had left for Denver early that morning and if he woke up now there wouldn't be anyone there to be with him. I practically ran through all the art exhibits just glancing at each one trying to get out, but my parent's took their sweet time, I don't see why they couldn't have let me stay at home. I even told them I had a shit-load of homework and they still made me come. It was a grade A museum, and I'm sure _someone_ had to be interested in early artists of the thirteenth century, but I sure as hell wasn't. It was like every painting was of some naked guy out in public surrounded by little angel babies or something stupid like that. _Where was the originality?_

They even had a whole section for Native American Theme carpets. How on earth could some people spend five hours looking at these fucking boring wall-mats?

We finally went home after my dad got to see all the Roman statues of naked men having sex or whatever, he wouldn't let us leave until he could see them up close. I was almost kissing the ground when we finally got out of there.

On Monday I guess I figured I'd tell Butters about Ike and my prank calls, but he was too busy crying in the girls bathroom. Yes, the girl's bathroom because he was apparently trying to get away from Kenny and that was the only place he could hide. The girls seriously didn't care, after the whole Marjorien thing he was practically one of them. During lunch I had had enough to where I went up to Kenny who was still waiting outside the girl's bathroom for him to come out and asked him what was going on.

"Hey, Kenny. What's up?" I asked dropping my backpack next to us.

"Nothing." He sighed then rapped on the door again. "Butters! Come out! I've never even heard of the girl!"

I pointed towards the door, "Doesn't sound like nothing."

He sighed then turned to me, "Stan, just mind your own business, alright? This is between Butters and I." He went back to yelling at the door. "I didn't get some whore pregnant! Just listen to me!"

Oh, now I saw what was going on, but instead of saying anything, I turned and started back to my lunch table.

"Alright, what ever you say Kenny," I smiled, "just don't give Kayla the same brush off you gave me. Pregnant girls can get pretty violent."

I looked back to see his jaw drop a whole foot.

"But—how did you—"

"Ike and I were prank-calling people over the weekend, dipshit, you were on the list." I yelled interrupting him.

That made Butters crawl out of his little hiding place, "You mean, it was a joke?"

I rolled my eyes, "That's what I'm saying, shit-for-brains."

After that they were inseparable again… long live the annoying two. In fact, I think that whole dilemma just made them closer, or maybe it just took me that long to notice Butters's face turn bright pink every time Kenny pulled them super close together and whisper something I'm guessing was pretty alluring in his ear. Either way, it was easy to tell girls weren't the only things Kenny was preoccupied with.

Tuesday, day nine hundred thirty-nine, at lunch everyone seemed to notice how much closer they were sitting together. Clyde and Token were certainly surprised with their sudden jump in "friendship"… Tweek was, well, Tweek, and Craig didn't care. In that situation, I had to go along with Craig. Kyle still wasn't awake, so I didn't give a shit.

It was later that day just after school; I was walking home when my mom called me.

"Hi Stanley."

"Hi Mom."

"I just wanted you to know, your father went to work today, and I won't be home until eight, but Dr. Kelso called." I swear if my fingers weren't frozen around my phone I would have dropped it. "I just wanted you to know you can go see Kyle now if you want, don't forget to finish your homework, if you get hungry before either of us get home, there's some cold pizza in the fridge, alright?"

It took me a couple of seconds before I could choke at a soft, "…okay."

"Well, alright honey, I'll see you later. Bye."

"…Bye…" I said, a little late, she had already hung up.

I got a dial tone after a few minutes of just standing there in front of the school like I had thought this day would never come. Day nine hundred thirty-nine, I can finally see Kyle again, but this time… he's going to be awake…

I threw my phone into my backpack and started running down the street to Hell's Pass.


	4. Unfortunate Findings

I burst through the front doors of the hospital in a very dramatic fashion, then raced passed Mrs. Dooley who was sitting behind the desk.

"Hello, Stanley." She called after I was halfway down the hall to the elevator.

Of course, it was still out of service, so I was forced to take the stairs again. So I climbed all 134 stairs until I got to the fifth floor. I ran down the hall probably waking up every sleeping patient and tried the doorknob on room 517; locked. Just my luck.

After a minute of just jiggling the knob, I gave up and went to sit in the waiting room at the end of the hall. The first thing I heard when I plopped down in one of the seats that I swear were stuffed with bricks was my phone going off again.

I groaned shoveling my hands through my backpack's pockets trying to find it. I eventually dug it out from under my English textbooks to see it was just Kenny who had texted me. I read it all the same.

'Hey where r u? I thought we were walking home 2gether.'

I flipped open my phone to reply just because in my current position I had nothing better to do but homework, and no way was I doing that now.

'Hospital. kyle woke up i hope.'

After I pressed send, I realized the seriousness of what was going on, and I got really excited and eager. I was probably shaking in my chair the way some of the other people there waiting who were looking at me. There was this one old lady eating a sandwich that from where I was sitting looked like just two slices of bread with mayonnaise in-between them, no meat or anything. She shot me some looks that made me think she thought I was the one who should belong here. There was this big blonde guy with a beard who kind of looked like a mix of Chuck Norris and Billy Mayes. He kept glaring at me like he thought I was sniffing glue or something.

'Ok c u 2morrow then'

I liked how Kenny knew that if I was with Kyle, shit was serious, and he knew not to bother me.

I was finally relieved when Dr. Kelso appeared from behind Kyle's room, so I jumped out of my seat and dashed over to him furiously.

"DR. KELSO! DR. KELSO!" I yelled nearly running him over.

He looked over at me and smiled even though I almost trampled him, "Stanley! Hello, I bet you want to see Kyle."

I stopped in front of him and nodded trying to catch my breath.

"Well," he sighed, "before you do, I just want to tell you a few things first. He woke up around an hour or so ago and immediately fell asleep, so we could only run a few tests like blood tests, and… you get the idea." I nodded. "He seems to have full control of his nervous system and can so far to our knowledge move all his limbs and is breathing regularly. I just want to warn you, he might not remember everything at first, just give him some time, and being in a coma that long might have caused him some brain damage, but so far we have not picked up any signs." I looked over at the door, I bet he could tell I was getting antsy and tired of waiting. "But, he's really tired, regained consciousness then went out like a light, so you should let him sleep for now… but, yes, you can go in."

He opened the door with a creek and held it open for me. Inside the lights were off, so just the dim light leaking through the blinds made it's way over into the room. As I stepped inside, a gust of warm air hit me, and I looked over at Kyle, who this time was laying on his side curled up under the covers facing my chair with his hands tucked up under his pillow. Dr. Kelso closed the door slowly behind me and I made my way quietly across the room and sat down next to him.

He was breathing very lightly and slowly in and out his mouth, really at peace this time. I hadn't turned on the florescence, so the dim light really set a calm, peaceful mood, made him look like he was floating on air or something. I raised my hand and lightly petted the hair falling in front of his face; I could feel him give a toneless sigh. It felt really nice to actually get a reaction from him.

I was thinking over whether or not I should wake him up or not. I mean, I really wanted to talk to him, but I didn't want him to be all pissy because he didn't get enough of his fucking two and a half years of beauty sleep. I smiled slightly brushing my hand against his face, it was a lot warmer than before, and I thought of all the stuff we've done together, all our memories. Then I remembered what Dr. Kelso said, how he might not remember anything. That would sure be a drag if he didn't know who I was.  
I decided then that I should wake him up, so I started whispering his name, "Kyle… Kyle…"

I saw him shift slightly in his sleep then mouth a few words, then I decided against myself and that I should let him get some rest. I wonder how long all his physical therapy and catching up on school will take. Hopefully not _too_ long, we needed to do stuff together again.

By then I had realized I was leaning in again, I barely caught myself before I fell forward on him, hell knows how bad that would have turned out. I sat myself up straighter and smiled a little just watching him breath. Two and a half years, day nine hundred thirty-nine, I looked at my watch, 3:46, September 7th.

I looked over at one of his hands that wasn't fully under his pillow and my habit starting itching. I wanted to hold it, and I knew I was going to no matter how much I tried to fight it, so why fight it, right? I laid my left hand down softly on his bed and inched it closer to his hand until they were barely touching, then I grabbed it lightly and pulled it close to me. I was surprised when he didn't wake up, but… this was Kyle. If there were a freakish flash flood he'd sleep through it.

I petted his hand gently like before… he looked really happy… now that he was not conscious but not in a coma it probably wasn't just my imagination when I thought I saw the ends of his mouth curl up slightly. It also probably wasn't my imagination when his eyes opened slowly.

I was _leaning in again_. His two hazy grey-green eyes were revealed a second time, and they looked straight at me again. At that moment, I knew he knew who I was and he had all his memory, that made me do a little mental scream of the word "YES!". I leaned in closer to him until we were a half a foot in distance from each other's faces, I thought he might try to say something to me, but he just smiled warmly and fell back asleep, but not before giving my hand a squeeze.

"Kyle?" I asked in a low voice. "Kyle, wake up."

I could seriously just jump up and pull him out of the bed and we could have done the Irish jig, but he was tired, and he being tired was making me tired, but I needed to stay awake, so I sat there waiting for him to wake up again.

I woke up however later I didn't know laying in something soft and white. I blinked a few times before I realized my butt was till halfway on the chair next to Kyle's bed, I must have fallen sleep then fallen forward. Why hadn't Kyle woken up then? I was facing towards his head, and could plainly see he was still asleep. He should have woken up, I was using his stomach for a pillow. Maybe he woke up then went back to sleep? That's probably what happened, his left arm was extended out from under his pillow and was resting on my back.

I sat up quickly but still made sure not to let his arm drop, Then placed it on his chest as he sleepily opened his eyes.

"Kyle!" I yelled pulling him up into a hug when he was still half-awake.

I felt him tense up for a minute, and then he lazily put his arms around me and hugged back. I let him go and set up his pillow so he could sit up. I took my seat again and just looked at him. God, he looked tired, like he had just been raised from the dead, duh, he kind of just was. He smiled slightly blinking very slowly and sighed.

I scooted my chair closer to him as he leaned up against the pillow and sunk down a little.

"Kyle… you're awake!" I said out of just having a mind blank. "What did Trent do to you? What was it like? You were out for so long! Are you alright, should I just let you sleep?" I was really hoping he'd answer no on that last question. "It looks like you can move all your limbs, that's so amazing! I was so worried you'd be a vegetable." I sighed.

While I was talking he seemed to wake up more, this was good, we could talk about stuff, get him caught up on everyone's status. GOD DAMN MIGHTY FUCK HE'S AWAKE!

He smiled wider letting out a sigh of his own and put a hand an my shoulder putting his weight on me for a second.

I leaned in a little for his answer, he opened his mouth and started going on and on… but he didn't say anything. He mouthed a couple of words then stopped himself. He blinked a few times and looked like he had no idea what was going on.

"What? What's wrong, Kyle?" I asked while he started mouthing more words.

He looked frustrated and confused, and his mouth moved faster until it was clear he was screaming—or, trying to at least. He grabbed my hand and looked around the room frantically, like he was trying to figure something out.

"Dude, Kyle, just tell me." I said grabbing his hand that was on mine trying to calm him down. "What's the matter?"

He froze for a second and breathed in and out slowly. He turned to me and looked me in the eye, trying to tell me what was wrong… I got nothing. He made a fist with his hand and started hitting his open palm with it.

"Uh, beat?" I guessed, he shook his head. "Trent? Coma?"

He shook his head violently then pointed at my backpack that was lying against my chair. I picked it up and set it on the bed next to him. He unzipped the biggest pocket and tore through all of my papers until he found a blank notebook paper and a pen. I tried looking over his shoulder trying to see what he was writing. A few seconds and he held it up to my face for me to read. I took it from him skimming over his message, his handwriting was really bad compared to two and half years ago, but he just woke up from his coma so that was to be expected.

I think I might have had a heart attack when I processed what he wrote, in big all uppercase letters was written, "I CAN'T TALK!"

I dropped the paper and looked back at him, he looked like if I were to touch him he would shatter into little pieces.

"Kyle, say something! Say anything!" I yelled shaking him.

He clenched his eyes closed and I saw him mouth, 'Anything.'

He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands, oh god, I thought he was going to start crying at any second, so I pulled him close to me and petted the back of his head.

"It's alright…" I assured. "I'll talk to Dr. Kelso, he'll fix this, just try to say something." I whispered.

I felt my sleeve being soaked through with his tears and then him nodding. I let him go gently and backed up to the door, "It'll be alright." I said with an unsure smile on my face, and it was called unsure for a reason.

He sniffled a little and nodded again before I closed the door behind me. Once I was in the hall, I leaned up against his door and started sinking towards the floor. Kyle can't talk? Maybe his voice is just hoarse. It has to be he was supposed to wake up and be fine, then we could go back to school and be with all those other assholes. _He can't not talk!_ What would we do? How would we tell each other stuff? How would he be able to talk back to Cartman and that bitch?

I shook my head, no, I'd just have to get Dr. Kelso, then he'd give him a pill or something and he'd get better. He **had** to.

I found him next to one of those water dispensers in the hallway; he was almost done with his cup so I ran over to him screaming.

"Kyle can't talk! What the hell is this! What's wrong! You have to help him!" I yelled with my hands thrown up in the air.

He looked over at me like he didn't hear a word I had just said, "Sorry Stanley, could you run that by me again?"

Yeah, that was _perfect_, "Kyle can't talk!"

It didn't look like news to him, "He can't? I told you," He threw away his water cup, "we only got to run a few test."

"Just fix him!"

He had me wait out in the waiting room again. I was seriously getting sick of always waiting when ever he did his little tests, why couldn't I come in a just sit there instead? The people had left and were replaced with new ones, ones who didn't give me any looks at all. They were just as concerned with what was wrong with them at the moment as I was. I felt bad for Kyle, I felt bad for me, but I didn't know why. You could say I was very disappointed, but I'm not that selfish, yeah Kyle woke up and couldn't talk, he'll get better, it's not like I'll just get a new best friend. He'll get better.

I sat there for half an hour before I actually turned my head and saw out the window it was dark and snowing. How long had I been asleep? It seemed like forever now. Fuck, I really needed a smoke, but I made a promise to Kyle. An unspoken one at that, but a promise none the less. I sighed and rolled up my left sleeve to reveal my nicotine patch, you know, to make sure it hadn't come off or something stupid like that.

Out of my boredom, I decided to talk to Kenny, so I whipped out my phone and started pushing buttons.

'Hey kenny whats up?'

I sighed then pressed send.

'Nothing much. you at the hospital?'

I sighed again, this was really dragging me down into a sour mood, but I still replied anyway, 'Yeah'

It was a couple minutes before his reply came, he was probably with some girl in her basement thinking of things to do. God only knows what Kenny is capable of when he's got nothing better to do. But, eventually my little message-received tone was blurted out from my cell phone and I flipped it open to check what he said, 'Yeah. so is he alright?'

'He woke up if thats what you mean'

A minute later and he tried to call me. I groaned looking over at Kyle's door, then my phone, then back to his door, then back to my phone, and I answered his call.

"What do you want?"

"Jesus, Stan, I could tell from your last text something was wrong, but I didn't know it was this bad, is he paralyzed or something?"

I huffed, "No, he's not, everything's fine." I lied.

There was a pause, "…R-really? I could have sworn—"

"Yeah, Kenny, really! Everything's fine! Just leave me alone." I had half a mind to hang up, but then I'd just be sent back to Boring McLame Town, weak, I know.

"Alright, everything is not fine, what the hell is going on over there?" I wouldn't say, he couldn't make me. "Stan? Stan? Don't make me come down there. Stan! God dammit. I'm just trying to help alright, you don't have to be such a dick, you kno—"

"He can't talk, alright!" I yelled into the phone then just let out a blood-curtailing scream that turned a few other peoples in the waiting room's heads.

"Wait… what!"

I was seriously about to break down and start crying, but I didn't, "Kenny, he—I… he woke up and… couldn't say anything…"

"You mean, he's like mute?" Kenny sounded fucking surprised.

"I don't know! He just couldn't talk!" Then I started hyperventilating.

"Alright, alright, it's alright, Stan. Hey!" He yelled getting my attention. "It's probably just a post-coma thing, I wouldn't be worried."

I shook my head, kind of forgetting I was talking to him through the phone, "No, Kenny, what if it's more than that? What if he is mute? What will I do? How will we talk! I'm freaking out! What if he can never talk again!"

I heard him sigh sadly through the line, "Dude, whatever happens, and I'm not saying anything will happen, but, he'll still be Kyle, you know?"

I sniffled loudly, "Yeah, I k-know…"

"You can always learn sign language or some shit." He suggested, but he didn't sound too serious that time. "Or maybe Morris Code, or like reading lips or something? There's a lot of stuff you can do, you can still do all the same stuff together."

"Yeah." I said, feeling a little better.

"…Except for, you know, singing karaoke." He added.

It wasn't really necessary, and if he had said it at the beginning of our conversation I'd be pretty pissed off, but instead I laughed.

"Yeah, thanks Ken." I said with a small smile on my lips.

"Ha ha, yeah, thanks, I try, Oh! Hey! Butters is here, you want to talk to him?" He asked, he probably had on a two-foot long smile right now or something.

I sighed out my nose still smiling, "Sure."

"Okay, hey Butters! Yeah, Stan wants to talk to you! No, come over here and get the phone! I'm not walking over to you. **Just get over here and take the phone, dammit!**" He yelled, making me laugh some more.

Kenny is pretty good at lifting a mood.

"Uh, hello?" I heard Butters' soft voice come on.

"Butters?"

"Hiya Stan." I smiled, Butters could lift a mood just by talking, no wonder Kenny always hung around him.

"Hey Butters. How's Kenny? He been treating you nicely?" I teased.

He paused for a minute, "…Oh god, did he tell you about us?"

I laughed a little, playing along, "Yup, he sure did, told me everything. Every last detail."

"…Uh, Kenny…" He called. "No, I didn't say anything. I-I didn't think it was that obvious. It's my entire fault, I knew it! I'm soo sorry! No, it was all my fault!" I was chuckling a little to myself until I realized he was being serious with Kenny. "It must have slipped somewhere, I'm sorry! D-don't try to help it, Ken, I'm a horrible boyfriend!"

Oh my fucking god, I was really diving into None-of-my-business Waters.

"Butters! Butters, listen to me!" I yelled into the phone trying to get his attention. "No one told me! I was kidding, I'm sorry!"

"Hu?" He asked, obviously he had heard nothing I just said.

"Butters, I didn't know, I was joking, I'm sorry, no one told me." I franticly said into the phone.

"…Aw, now I feel like an idiot…" He said sadly.

"No, no, you're not an idiot!" I tried saying, but it was hopeless and this conversation was going nowhere. "Here, why don't you just put Kenny back on the phone, alright?"

"…Alright…" I heard him sniffle.

"Hey Stan, way to make my boyfriend cry." Kenny said, but I knew he wasn't serious.

"Kenny, calm down, I'm sorry I… found out…"

"_Pehh_, whatever, everyone has to find out eventually. Just forget about it." He laughed. "It's alright, but now I'm going to have to ram him to shut him up."

"Nice." I said sarcastically then laughed.

"No, I'm serious." His tone changed. "You'd better forget this whole conversation or I will seriously come over to your house in the middle of the night, gouge out your eyeballs, and skull-fuck you."

I laughed louder now, "Alright, wait, what were we talking about? I can't remember. Who is this again?"

"That's better! You know the whole skull-fuck you thing, I got it from the Internet."

"'Course you did, Kenny."

"Butters, I'll be there just a minute, just stop crying, it's alright, I don't mind. How do you know for sure that they'll ground you? Really? For just doing that? Man your parents suck ass!" He said away from the phone making it quieter. "Hey, Stan, I got to go, but I'll call you back later, alright?" There was a crash in the background. "On second thought, I might not, anyway, the thing is, what ever happens to Kyle, he's still the same. No matter what, all right? Don't forget that, okay?"

I half-laughed, "Yeah, Ken, I got it."

"Okay, good, now if you'll excuse me, I got to go take care of something's. If you see a particularly moody blonde comeing your way… just watch out for Hurricane Leopard."

"Go get 'em, tiger." I said, then hung up.

I felt a whole bunch better, and I'm sure I looked a whole bunch better too. Kyle was going to be alright, he was awake, that's all that mattered, and even if his voice was a little cracky, he was still the same old Kyle. I just had to get used to what ever he threw at me, hell knows I've done it before, I can do it again, and twice as better than before. He was going to be okay. I was going to be okay. Nothing else mattered, not even the fact I just accidentally intruded on my friend's subtle—and no doubt gay—relationship. No amount of apologize would ever sew up that slip up, I bet… poor Butters. I just had to go and ruin their night. Hell, I might have even jeopardized Kenny's chance of sex, and if that turned out true, I would never know if Kyle ends up alright. I needed to know the end of this story! No way was I missing this, not even if Kenny went on a bloody rampage smashing windows with a mallet trying to bash my fucking brains out.

The moral of that story; never come between Kenny and sex, that's like suicide. He's a fucking addict or something.

My long, dwindling thoughts were interrupted when I heard a significant voice call my name from behind Kyle's door.

"Stanley?" Dr. Kelso called me.

"Yeah?" I stood up eagerly running towards him for the news. "How's Kyle? What about his voice?"

He didn't look like he had good news, but that had to be because he was doing that game show host fake-out where you lock in your answer and they start out saying "I'm sorry, but… YOU JUST WON 1 MILLION DOLLARS!" It had to be.

"He seems to be fine, he looks like it would just take a few weeks of physical therapy, he has minimal brain damage, he's going to make a speedy recovery, and a full one at that." I was so happy I felt a giant smile spread across my face. "But," It disappeared, "Stanley…"

"Yes?" I asked, all these dramatic moments had to be bad for your mental health or something.

"Kyle's voice was the part of his brain that was damaged."

My spirits fell a whole three story building, "What are you saying?" I asked, hoping there was something he could still do for him.

"Stanley, Kyle can never speak again."

* * *

Now you know why the story is called "Speechless".


	5. Silent Cries

It was probably best I had talked to Kenny before he told me, otherwise I would have probably thrown a chair, instead I stood there letting it sink in. _Kyle can never speak again._ Now what?

"I'm sorry you had to find out that way, Stanley, we should have ran through all our tests before I called the Broflovski's." He said trying to make me feel better. "We don't see any chances he might recover his voice, so he will be mute for the rest of his life." I was standing very stilly while he talked looking down to the side until he said that, I accidentally let out a kind of choking sound. "You can see him if you'd like now, we haven't told him the news yet. It would be best if his parents were the ones to tell him, but they aren't here, so if you'd like to give him the news—"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll do that…" I cut him off still not looking at him.

I pushed past him faster than he could step aside from the door and forced it open. Inside Kyle was sitting up in his bed looking down at his hands. I froze the second I stepped in the doorway and he looked up anxiously at me. He was smiling. He thought I was going to tell him it would be all right. I stopped and just stared at how happy he seemed. Oh god, I couldn't do it. I couldn't tell him he would never be able to talk again. He didn't deserve this.

A few seconds and I forced myself to move forward and sit on the edge of his bed.

"Hey dude." I said faking a small smile.

'Hi.' He mouthed.

I _really_ couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to, so I turned my head and hid my gaze from him. Looking over at the door, trying not to cry, some best friend I was turning out to be. I was really holding back my tears—or trying to at least—but that became impossible when I felt a hand land softly on my back trying to console me. I broke down crying in front of Kyle who just pulled me into another hug; and _I_ was the one who should be trying to comfort _him_.

"Kyle…" I started, but he covered my mouth with his hand to get me to stop talking.

I looked up at his face as he let me go. He looked sad and like he knew what I was thinking, he knew what I was trying to say.

"…I'm sorry…" I finally said looking down.

Kyle sat there for a minute perfectly still until he went back to my backpack I had left next to his bed. He took out my diary I hadn't had a chance to write in yet and a pen and began scribbling words on the blank lines.

'So I'm not getting better?' He held it up for me to read.

I shook my head, "You'll be alright, Kyle, you just won't ever be able… to speak again…"

He didn't look too surprise; he just went back to writing me another note. This one was defiantly longer.

'Alright… I know I'm Hell's Pass, but where's Trent? And how did I get away from him?' He gave it to me to read.

"Well, you've been in coma." I looked up to see him roll his eyes; I guess he already knew that, so I cut to the chaise. "Trent's in jail. Someone found him leaving the… synagogue… all bloody and called the police. You were taken to the hospital… and were in a coma for two and a half years—"

He slapped my arm getting my attention as he tried yelling, 'TWO AND A HALF FUCKING YEARS!' Or something like that, it was hard to tell because he was yelling.

I just nodded, "Do you… remember what he did?" I asked.

Sure Trent confessed in court and told the story, but not much about what he actually did to Kyle, I was just curious.

He thought for a minute then grabbed back the diary and began writing some more. I watched him as he wrote, yes there was not very much else to do, but I still liked to see him moving on his own instead of by a nurse rotating him so he wouldn't get coma bed sores. It was amazing he had just woken up earlier that day and we were talking—sort of.

He was getting better at writing clearer; 'I remember that day at school we were really scared he was getting out, that was when the rumor had just started.' That's right, that rumor from freshman year, that was a long time ago. 'After school I went to the synagogue to pray he wouldn't find me. Well, that ended up failing, and he found me. I kind of remember him saying something about the rumor and wanting to find me first to kill me because of it. I remember lots of splinters and torn cloth.' I remember someone saying something about a broken bench during the whole ordeal at school. 'I kind of think I remember a knife and a really big pain in my stomach and stuff.' Disembowelment. 'Then the floor was being thrown up at me and that's it.'

I shook my head handing it back to him, "I'm really sorry Kyle, I should have been with you, this was my fault." I found myself nearly hyperventilating mid-sentence.

He sat watching me for a minute not really knowing how to handle the situation, then put his hand on my back again making me look at him. I couldn't help but think he looked still amazing, even more so when he looked concerned for my mental state. Like a god of grief or something. It made me feel better, especially when he started shaking his head slowly trying to show me that this was the inevitable conclusion of our story together. He would be in a coma and wake up to be mute, and I would feel guilty for not have being there. It was like god already wrote it; there was no way around it. Even if I had been there. The universe would have some how conspired a way to make this our story ending, but, this wasn't the ending, we were still here, and the story's not over yet.

'It's not your fault.' He mouthed, or something along the lines of that, reading lips is hard.

I used my sleeve to wipe the tears running down my face, "I know, dude."

I handed him back the diary and he wrote down something else, 'So… two years.'

"Actually, two and a half." I corrected after he showed me, he just nodded. "You're doctor says you're going to make a full recovery. Then maybe you could come back to school again." I suggested, he just nodded again. "The kids at school really missed you. Nothing changed that much while you were out. Time just kind of stood still while you were gone."

He went on nodding after I was done talking. I bent my back to get a better look at his face that was facing down and to the side.

I reached up and brushed some hair out of his eyes, "Kyle, are you alright?" He shook his head this time. "What's wrong? You can tell me."

'No I can't.' He wrote.

"Well, why not?"

He looked at me like I was stupid and at the same time like he was going to fall to pieces, 'I can't tell you. I can't tell you anything. I CAN'T TALK.' He wrote shoving the diary in my chest.

"Oh." I said understanding what he meant. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head and grabbed back the book to write some more, 'Stop saying that! It's not your fault, you don't have anything to be sorry for!'

He didn't give it to me to see, but I could just as easily read his outrageously large handwriting upside down as his body shook all over and I could tell he was trying not to start bawling. A single tear fell on the diary. He was loosing it.

"Kyle—…I don't really know what to say…" I whispered, my eyes avoiding his as he looked up at me.

I planned to look for just a second, just take a glimpse at his expression, but I found I couldn't look away. His face was just screaming, "then don't say anything at all". So I didn't. I snaked both arms around his neck and pulled him into another hug. I let out a sigh of relief when he put his arms around me in return and squeezed as hard as he could.

"It's alright… I'm here…"

He began crying really hard into the collar of my coat and his whole body was shaking. I tried to stop myself, but it was contagious, and I started crying too. Kyle could immediately feel this, and he pulled us apart to see what was up with me.

"It's nothing, dude." I lied wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. "I just really feel for you."

'Thanks.' He wrote. 'Me too.'

We sat there for a while not talking and not looking at each other. I wish we were talking about something—anything! He was awake and we weren't saying anything. Not that Kyle can anymore or anything. I sighed resting my head on my hands; Kyle must feel horrible, not being able to talk. I wish there was something I could do for him, he just sat there in his bed looking half-dead. I think I'd look that way too if it were me.

"So…" I said. "Wendy broke up with me."

I looked up over at him to see his expression automatically shift, just saying that and he was immediately in a really good mood.

'Really? When did she do that?' He asked.

"Around a month after you went into a coma." I said shrugging. "She was always complaining about how I spent too much time at the hospital checking on you."

He smiled, 'You were always here?'

"Defiantly always, not a single day passed when I wasn't."

He looked really satisfied while pulling up his knees and wrapping his arms around them, 'Yeah? She dumped you 'cause you spent all your time with me?'

"Well," I turned away, "she also said I care more about you than her."

That pretty much got all his attention; he scooted forward slinging an arm over my shoulder. Should he really be moving this much? What if one of his tuby-thingies comes out? That might be a big mess.

'Do you?' He mouthed.

"Even before you were in a coma, dude."

He seemed satisfied enough with that answer. I liked it too, mostly because it was true. Wendy could go fuck herself for all I cared, but she was fucking something worse actually; Cartman. Speaking of them, that brings up the fact of what Kyle's going to think when he finds out about them. Or Kenny and Butters for that reason, hey Kenny never told me I couldn't tell people. He said himself; "everyone has to find out eventually". I bet he wouldn't care if I told Kyle, who was he going to tell? He could hardly communicate.

Suddenly, he grabbed the diary from me as I was reading over our previous notes. He was writing me another note.

'Penny for your thoughts.'

"_Pheh_, you don't even have a penny." I said pushing him playfully away.

'Can I borrow a penny?'

I laughed a little, "You know what? Forget the penny, I'll tell you for free." He leaned in closer suggesting me to go on. "Cartman and Wendy are going out."

He was smiling a little a second before, then it disappeared as he looked me over, 'Is that why your wearing your goth clothes?'

Oh god, did he misinterpret that.

"Uh, no, no, I'm totally over Wendy, Cartman can have her. I was just really worried about you, you know, you were in a coma. A **fucking coma**."

He sighed looking to the side, 'Are you back with the goths?'

I grabbed his face making him look back at me, he wasn't exactly expecting me to do that, so he kind of jumped, but calmed down after a second. I shook my head slightly while keeping a straight face to show shit was serious.

He smiled a little, then picked up the diary, 'So, you still going to wear all black?'

I bit my lip trying to think of a good answer that wouldn't piss him off or make me hate myself. I have to say I didn't really care, but he most likely did.

"Uh… only if you want me to." I kind of mumbled.

'I kind of like it, but you need your old hat.' He wrote, but before he held it up for me he added; 'Speaking of which, where's my hat?'

Apon reading that, I reached into my coat pocket to take it out and show Kyle I had it, "Your brother gave it to me, you know, incase you woke up while they were gone."

He anxiously took back his hat and proceeded to put it on back where it belonged; his head. But hearing me mention his family's trip made his freeze and just look at me like I told him he had three days to live or something.

'They took a trip while I was waking up?' He scribbled down in the diary.

I nodded, "They had planned it in advance, dude, they couldn't get a refund on the hotel so they had to go."

He looked like he was going to cry again, 'They planned a trip while I was still in a coma? What if I had woken up! I did wake up, and they still went on there stupid vacation? Am I not as important to them as where ever it is they are?'

He was sniffling loudly, I could tell he was going to start any second, so I pulled him close to me, "Dude, Kyle, listen." He stopped sniffling and looked at me, not hinting any expression. "They waited two and a half years, they were going to see relatives in Denver or something because they hadn't seen each other for so long. They just figured, I don't know, that if you were out for so long already that you wouldn't wake up until after they got back." I said trying to make him feel better.

He just shook his head and fell forward on my shoulder, reaching around me to get the diary. After a while he tossed it back to me to read while he stayed where he was.

'They didn't think I would wake up, did they?'

I didn't know what to say. How could I tell him he was right and no one but I thought he would make it?

"Kyle, …I'm sorry."

I felt him let out a sharp breath then him start to cry again. Fuck, today just wasn't my day, it seems I was fucking up everyone's lives. What can I do now? Lie and say it'll be all right when obviously it isn't? The least I could do is try to comfort him, so I pulled my arms tighter around him showing I cared and that's all that mattered now.

"It's okay, I'm hear." What else was I supposed to say? "It's just you, and me, and nobody else. That's all that matters now."

I felt his jaw move on my shoulder indicating he was trying to say something. It was short, and he stopped before I could pull us apart to see what he was saying. When I did, he just looked at me trying not to smile even though there were still tears gathering in his eyes.

"What was that?" I asked.

He shook his head, 'Can't.' He mouthed slowly enough for me to understand.

I chuckled a little, "Alright, whatever."

'So, Wendy got with Cartman, why the hell him?' He wrote when I went back to sitting on the edge of his bed.

"It was actually all him, she had broken up with me and was kind of loosing it so Cartman stepped in and practically took advantage of her." I looked up to see him roll his eyes. "Then they just started dating. I don't really care though, it's her life."

'That's so Cartman.' He wrote, then looked over at his pile of cards. 'People got me cards?'

I nodded, "From two and a half years ago, everyone made you get-well cards. Here," I said getting up to take a handful and bring them to him, "that one's mine."

I pointed to it. Kyle immediately picked it up first and took a look at the shitty drawing of us I drew on the front. He seemed to like it though, all we were doing was standing there together… and there was Cartman being hung in the background, but still, really crappy drawing. His smile widened when he opened it up and read what I had written inside.

'I'm sorry, wake up soon, Kyle.' He mouthed reading the card. 'Get better as fast as you can or I'll have to start hanging out with Cartman and his fat ass.' He laughed a little at that, but being mute, he could even do that, so it was just short puffs of air.

He stopped himself and looked like he was going to cry again.

'I can't even laugh!' He mouthed.

I just hugged him again; those seemed to really calm him down. He didn't start crying though; he just burrowed his face into my shoulder/neck I don't know.

"Hey, why don't we read some more of these? I think you got at least one from everyone in class. See, here's one from Timmy." I opened it prepared to read it, but all it said was Timmy. "Well, it's the thought that counts, speaking of which, you got one from Cartman too. He didn't make one, but he bought one for you, he wrote… well, we'll save that one for later."

He pulled away from me laughing, then hiccuped and covered his mouth like he just spilled Kenny's and Butter's secret to Cartman. It made me smile, not only because of my narrating thoughts, also because the hiccup was really random and kind of funny. He dropped his head down in despair as I just patted his back still laughing.

'Whatever, yours is the only one that matters.' He wrote, then looked away from me, probably thinking about something serious.

"Penny for your thoughts."

He looked up at me then started writing, 'The rumor.'

"Oh. That." I sighed. "It was two years ago, no one remembers it, it's not a big deal." I assured him, but he didn't look satisfied.

'Who started it?'

I shrugged, "I don't know, one of the girls? Cartman?" He looked disappointed; this moment was as good as any, so I just asked. "Kyle, was it true?"

He looked up at me like I was crazy, 'No, dude, what the hell?'

"Sorry, just curious." I said kind of feeling guilty I asked. "It was about me too."

That it was, the rumor started two and a half years ago. I'm pretty sure who ever started it just wanted to piss off Wendy; that worked at least. Did I mention that was the second reason she broke it off with me? Because of that stupid rumor she was a nazi and Kyle had been in a coma and lost his voice. Whatever, doesn't matter, Kyle wouldn't start a rumor about himself, especially not one that made everyone hate him including me. Well, I didn't entirely hate him; I just, kind of believed it. Who ever did start it must have had a riot when they saw how much it screwed us all over. God I was gullible. Fucking society had me believe Kyle had a "man-crush" on me.

That's what we last talked about, I remember now. God did I screw that up, the day before Trent got released. Some how he caught wind of it and went for Kyle first who—because of me—was all alone. The whole thing was my fault, just for blowing up in his face about me having a girlfriend and how he couldn't do this to us. All the kids at school sure gave him shit for it, for what I know it was going around a whole day before I heard it.

I must have looked close to tears, because Kyle was the one who hugged me.

"I'm so sorry, this was all my fault!" I yelled, he just rubbed my back and shook his head.

Our moment was ruined by my phone going off in my pocket. We let go of each other almost immediately and I reached into my pocket to see who it was.

"Uh, it's my mom." I said. "Do you mind?" He shook his head. "Alright, thanks dude. Hello, mom?"

"Stanley! Where are you! It's going on two in the morning!" She yelled into the phone.

"Oh, sorry, I kind of lost track of time, I'm with Kyle."

"Really? He's right there? Can I talk to him?" She asked.

"Sure—" I stopped myself to realize what she was asking. "Uh, mom, you can't actually."

"What? Why not? Stanley?"

"I'll tell you when I get home, alright? Bye." I said hanging up before she could argue. "Kyle, I have to go, sorry."

I grabbed my backpack while he scribbled something down in the diary; 'Can I keep the journal?' He asked.

I smiled, "Course you can."

'Bye.' He mouthed.

"Bye."

* * *

Yeah, short chapter. Wasn't much they could really talk to much about. Hey, if you guys want to make guesses of who started the rumor... that could be fun. Also, I need activities Stan and Kyle could do together now that Kyle is vocally inept. In this story, literally anything goes, alright? Two in one day, that's like a new record.


	6. Interupted Teachings

It was no longer day ten billion three anymore, it was September 19th, Sunday, almost two weeks since Kyle woke up. Now he was sitting next to me in my car.

Backtracking, Kyle's family got home Wednesday the eighth as planned, they had a little reunion with Kyle and got the news, surprising enough, I was the only kid from school who visited him. Not even Kenny went to see him the two weeks he was in there. So, I got him all to myself most of the time. He didn't really mind I don't think. He didn't really say anything—not that he could, or anything.

Dr. Kelso was talking to his parent's one day while I was there about Kyle learning sign language, now that was a good idea and all, but Kyle's parents kept saying things of how _they_ would learn it because they had work and Ike. They didn't have time to learn it, so naturally, I volunteered. They said it would be best if Ike was the one to translate whatever he says for everyone else, but that brought up the fact that Kyle was in high school and he was still in middle school and Kyle would probably never let that happen. So I was appointed as the official Kyle translator for all the people who can't read sign language.

His physical therapy took less than anyone could have guessed, so right now we were taking his first trip out of the hospital. I was driving him to our first sign language session. There was supposed to be around twenty other people there, and among them were mute and deaf people with some of their relatives or friends.

I was having a good time driving; the class was up in Middle Park, so we had a good thirty minutes to an hour drive. Kyle brought along his diary and we were talking about Kenny and Butters because I had just told him about an hour before.

'So, what do you think they're doing now?' He held up the book for me to read without distracting me from the road too much.

"I don't know, all Kenny said was he couldn't come with us because they wanted to see a movie or something."

'They won't be able to catch up in classes. Then you'll be the only one who can understand me.' He wrote.

"There loss, anyway, I was kind of thinking we should also learn Morse Code or something, you know, if we can't see each other?" I asked. "Then we could talk on the phone or something."

'And lip reading or something.' He suggested, Kyle was really anxious to not having to carry around the diary.

"Yeah, sure." I said taking a turn down the street the class was on. "Okay, look for the address 5183 on the left."

We both leaned left looking out my window until I saw him point to a beige building further down the street. I pulled into the parking lot and helped him out of the car, then we ran up to the doors in the front. I had forgotten to set my alarm the night before, so we were already ten minutes late, but the class was two hours a class, so we couldn't be that _late_.

Inside there was a lady behind the desk staking some papers, I ran up to her pulling Kyle along behind me.

"Hi, we're here for the sign language class?" I said and she pointed down one of the halls.

"Third door on your left." She said then went back to her work.

"Thanks," I grabbed Kyle's hand, "come on, dude."

We stormed down the hall trying to become any more late, and burst through the doors of the third door on the left. There was a lady talking in front of a small group of people next to a white board, she stopped when the door slammed behind us and everyone looked back to see who had come in.

"Uh," I started, kind of feeling awkward because there was nothing in the room indicating it to be our class, "is this the sign language session?"

The lady in the front nodded, "Yes, I am the instructor, Mrs. Vilas. You boys can take a seat where ever you'd like," She gestured to the whole room of chairs and white tables in front of us, "just let me check your names off our list." She looked down at the clipboard in her hands. "Names please?"

Kyle looked over at me telling me to get on with it.

"Kyle Broflovski and Stan Marsh." I managed to choke out; all the people hadn't stopped staring at us yet.

"Alright, take your seats, we were just about to start our first lesson." She said going back to the front.

Kyle hurried to an empty table and took his seat, they had plenty of blank papers and pens laid out on the table, so he didn't take out the diary. I sat down next to him; Mrs. Vilas began drawing hands on the white board for us to see.

"Alright, before we start, I want us all to introduce ourselves again and why you are here, why don't we start with you," She pointed to a middle age man with who was probably his daughter, "Mr.…" She looked back at her clip board, "Mr. Barden."

"Uh, yes, hello everyone, I'm Mr. Barden, this is my daughter, Kayla, we're here to teach my daughter sign language because my wife recently went deaf." He said standing up, damn he was tall.

The people next to them stood up afterwards; these people were here because one of them was deaf. There were lots of deaf people. I kind of zoned out after the first few groups, so when Kyle nudged my arm with his I woke up to realize everyone was staring at us again.

Kyle stood up and gestured me to do the same, it must have been our turn or something, "Um, my name is Stan, this is my friend, Kyle. He just got out of a coma and can't talk."

Kyle waved to everyone, not exactly smiling, as we sat back down I heard some girl in the back of the room say, "What a sad story!"

She didn't know the half of it. The rest of the groups went on to introduce themselves, Kyle had since grabbed a paper and pen and began writing me a note.

'Dude, what's up? You're spacing, don't you want to be here?' I read after he passed it to me.

"Yeah, it's just," I whispered, "I got my mind on other things, just that one moment, I swear."

He just turned away, shit, I need to focus. This was really important to Kyle, I couldn't blow this. Mrs. Vilas had resumed talking after everyone had gone, and I was spacing again. Thinking about things we could do, going back to school, it was all too exciting, I didn't really want to be cooped up in this building sitting in this chair in almost complete silence. I wanted to go have fun with Kyle and stuff, but first he had to learn sign language, and so did I.

"Alright, so as our first lesson, we're going to start out slow, but I want to make sure everyone can still fully communicate after we leave today, so we'll start with the alphabet. It's simple really," She began writing out all the letters on the board, "you'll all be able to talk to each other without taking up too much time. That's all that really matters, once everyone's mastered the alphabet we can move on to whole word symbols."

I looked over to Kyle when she paused; he was smiling. Really smiling, not like smiles he faked in the hospital when I'd tell him about the look on so-and-so's face when something happened to them in school, he was really into this.

Mrs. Vilas turned to us and held up her hand making it into a fist with her thumb on the outside, "This is our first letter, A. I want you all to try it."

I made my hand into a fist and showed it to Kyle who had done the same. We both smiled at each other—three more letters and we could say 'apple'. We both made another A in our other hands as Mrs. Vilas went around checking everyone's A's. Eventually she made her way over to us and made some minor adjustments to my hand because my thumb was in front of my first finger. It had to be all the way not in front of any otherwise it was an S. Man it's going to be hard to memorize all of these.

"Alright, moving on, next it B." She opened up he palm bending her thumb over it like the Buddha hand or something.

Kyle and I immediately turned to each other with our B's; we were kind of having fun. Learning the alphabet wasn't too hard, it was just remembering that T was your thumb under your first finger, not R; your first two fingers crossed. Kyle was defiantly having a good time, he was really eager to start signing out whole words and sentences, but Mrs. Vilas told us not to get ahead of the class. I didn't see why we couldn't, but she insisted we continue to use the paper and pens. I was having fun too, this meant when we got back to school we could talk to each other in class without passing notes.

This was seriously going to be sweet.

We were grinning at each other sending telepathic messages to each other, but that ended when Mrs. Vilas went back to the front and continued talking.

"Now, when talking in sentences, making a space between words, you just have to pause. If a letter repeats itself, you just make your hand bounce a little to the side and continue the word, let me demonstrate." She made an M with her fist, then had it jump a little to the left, indicating the word had two M's next to each other. "Now I want you all to try, just say anything, it doesn't have to be fast."

Kyle and I immediately turned to each other and I let him go first.

'T…h…i…s… …i…s… …r…e…a…ll…y… …f…u…n.' He signed.

'D…e…f…i… n…i… t…e…l…y.'

"Kyle, Stan, you're doing very well," Mrs. Vilas came over to check on us, "don't worry, as you practice it will be easier to read and you will be able to sign faster."

"Alright." I said turning back to Kyle.

'W…h…e…r…e… …d…o… …y…o…u… …w…a…n…t… …t…o… …g…o… …a…f…t…e…r… …t…h…i…s?' I asked.

'B…a…c…k… …t…o… …S…P… …c…a…n… …w…e… …g…o… …t…o… …y…o…u…r… …h…o…u…s…e?'

'S…u…r…e.'

"Wait," I said out loud, "I promised your mom I'd bring you back to your house so you could rest a while in your own room."

God, I was turning into some old person for forgetting something stupid like that, he just nodded. He obviously knew his mom to be the kind to do that; ruin our fun when we were finally together out of that hospital, at least we were together now. His mom also said something about talking to me…? Something about Kyle's voice.

'C…a…n y…o…u s…t…a…y w…i…t…h m…e t…h…e…r…e t…h…e…n?' Damn, he was already getting faster at this crap!

Well, Kyle always was a fast learner, let's hope that applies to getting caught up on schoolwork too.

"S…u…r…e… …I… …c…a…—shit! I forgot how to do N!" I yelled a little too loud.

Kyle just rolled his eyes and grabbed my right hand pushing it into a fist and pulling my thumb out from under my third finger making it sit under just the first two.

"Uh, thanks dude." I said looking at it. "You're better at this than me."

'I… k…n…o…w.' He signed smiling.

All the sudden, a girl from another table got up and sat across from us. She smiled, obviously she was trying to ask one of us out, or trying to get one of us to do that to her. Kyle and I looked at each other; he knew the situation too.

"Uh, yes?" I asked out of nothing better coming to mind.

She bit her lip, "Hi, my name's Mandy, I had to drive my brother here for his lesson, what a drag, right?" She was definitely trying to ask out one of us now.

"Not really, we think it's pretty interesting." I said not making any expressions, or at least trying to.

Kyle began writing me a note so she couldn't read what he said if he signed to me.

'Dude, what a hag.'

I nodded in response, then crumpled the paper into a little ball shoving it into my pocket.

"So," She said looking down at the table, "why are you guys here?"

I looked over at Kyle who was glaring at his hands beneath the table. God, why could she just leave us alone when we were finally having a good time together.

"Personal reasons." I said.

I could tell she was really pissing of Kyle for some reason. He kind of clenched his fists and banged them against the underside of the table.

"Didn't you guys say one of you just woke up from a coma?" She asked, dude this girl was retarded for not taking the hint and leaving us alone.

"Yeah."

"So what were your names again?"

Kyle was practically throwing his head down on the table now, which she continued to either ignore or she still hadn't noticed. I grabbed both his shoulders to keep him from drawing blood from his forehead, and to sit him back up straight. That seemed to calm him down enough to sit there lying far back in his chair scowling at her. I didn't exactly mind, now that he wasn't trying to commit suicide by bashing his own head open.

Kyle looked tense, really tense. There's only one way to cure that; pointless meddling, and who better to use as a victim than the person who made him so ticked off?

"My name's Kyle." I said nonchalantly.

Kyle immediately perked up and looked over at me, so I just gave him a blank stare hoping he'd get it.

Luckily he did and eventually spelled out, 'I…m S…t…a…n.'

It shouldn't have been as funny as I thought it was. We just switched our names, that's all, but I was having a hard time controlling myself.

"Really? That's cool." She said, totally buying it.

I glanced over to Kyle for a second, he was smiling. Slightly, but still, it was a start. He glanced over at me through the corner of his eye, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was.

"That's cool?" I asked, repeating what the girl said.

"Uh, yeah… I guess." She looked kind of embarrassed with her head down to the side.  
"You guess?"

"Yes." Now she was looking at me slightly annoyed.

"Yes?"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah?"

"Uhg!" She yelled out of frustration.

"Wait, wait." I stopped her before she could say another word and looked around the room like I was trying to listen to something. "Do you hear that?"

There was nothing there. Kyle knew what I was doing, but the girl thought I was actually hearing something.

"What? What is it?" She asked trying to hear it too.

I slumped down in my chair getting comfortable again, "Oh, nothing, it's gone now."

"Oh." She said looking down at her hands. "So, Stan was it?"

I almost said "Yes" but it was obvious she was talking to Kyle, so I nudged him with my elbow and he looked up to see her waiting for a reply. Out of instinct of not hearing what she said, he shook his head.

"But, I uh… you said your name was Stan." She said scratching her head and pointing to him.

Kyle smiled for a half a second then shook his head again. He grabbed a paper and a pen and began writing; 'I never said my name.' Then held it up for her to see.

"Uh, alright, I could have sworn you did. Anyway, you're the one who was in a coma, right?"

Oh god, now I recognized her voice, she was the one who commented after Kyle and I stood up to introduce ourselves at the beginning. Kyle just shook his head again, so out of boredom I picked up a pen and started taking it apart.

"So, your name's not Stan, and you weren't in a coma?" She asked again, Kyle began writing her another note.

'What were we talking about again?'

I took out the red pen ink container thing and began bouncing it with my fingers, subtly aiming at the girl whose name I had forgotten right after she told it to us. What was her name anyway, Julie? Maybe it was Jacky. Vicki? She looked like a Vicki. She was in the middle of one of her sentences when the ink container _"accidentally"_ flew out of my hands. It went all the way across the table and hit Vicki right in the face, getting ink all over her nose and mouth.

I did a little "Bulls-eye!" in my mind as she got up and screamed. It was really dripping off her face; it looked like she had gotten a bloody nose or something. Apparently some other people thought that too, because this one old lady sitting at a table next to ours ran over and started shoving old tissues from her purse up Vicki's nose. That didn't really help with the screaming except now they were nasally and it was obvious she was having hard time breathing.

Mrs. Vilas escorted her out of the room to get cleaned up in the bathroom; I managed to throw a quick "Sorry, accident" at her as she left. When she was gone everyone went back to there own thing, so I just turned back to Kyle who was—no surprises there—looking at me ready to start where we'd left off.

"So, what were we doing?" I asked.

'S…i…g…n…i…n…g.'

'R…i…g…h…t.'

The class ended about an hour later after Mrs. Vilas had taught us how to count to ten. Vicki came back in after ten minutes with her clothes still a little stained, but she sat at her own table and didn't bother us again. Just to make sure, when she was close enough to me, I said another "What's that noise, it started again?"

We were walking out of the room; everyone passed Mrs. Vilas as they left though the door. As Kyle and I got to her she pulled a little red whistle on a string out of some weird whicker basket and hung it around Kyle's neck.

"I know you can't talk, so if you need to call for help or something, you can just blow the whistle, alright?" She said putting down the basket.

He nodded; it was a pretty useful idea.

We were driving home, you know, listening to the radio, me trying to sign him words and him adjusting my hand into the right position when I was a little off.

'S…o… …I… …w…a…s… …t…h…i…n…k….i…n…g… …w…e… …s…h…o…u…l…d… …l…e…a…r…n… …M…o…r…s…e... …C…o…d…e.'

I glanced over at him to see him nodding. I was about to say something else, but that Six Flags commercial came on the radio and I turned it up for Kyle to hear.

"Dude, this is the funniest commercial ever."

"Hi, I'm on a roller coaster, and I'm really glad I could get into Six Flags only paying kid's price because I brought some coke. I really love roller coasters, and I really love coke. We're really high right now, a little too high, yeah, so if you go to Six Flags with some coke you can get in for less. You and all your friends can come in and have coke at Six Flags. We're really high, oh god, here comes the drop, AAAHHHHHH! I wish we hadn't gotten so high! Anyway, bring your coke to Six Flags! Everyone pays kid's price!"

The commercial ended and the next song came on, but we didn't hear it because we were laughing too hard, or at least I was.

'That was too obvious to have been an accident.' Kyle wrote out for me so I could keep my eyes on the road most of the time.

"Didn't they think for one minute that it might have hinted _something_?" I asked still chuckling.

Kyle shrugged, 'W…e g…o…i…n…g t…o m…y h…o…u…s…e?'

I made a left, "Yeah, but first I want to pick up some print outs I left at mine. I thought when we signed up for our sign language class that we might as well work on Morse Code too, so I found a website that had every word so I printed it. It's in my room, it'll just take me a minute to get."

'A…l…r…i…g…h…t.'

We pulled up in front of my house a few minutes later. I immediately jumped out into a pile of snow, then ran around the front to help Kyle get out. I don't really know why I did; he was more than capable of doing it himself. He didn't seem to mind so I didn't think it mattered very much anyway. I grabbed his hand as he tried to brush off some dust from his jacket or something, and we ran up to the front door.

I rang the bell a few times, then my dad finally got his lazy ass off the couch to answer the door.

"Uh, hey Stan, hi Kyle, how was the lesson?" He asked scratching his arm.

"It was fine." I pushed past him with Kyle being pulled behind me.

I took Kyle over to the couch, throwing some Cheezy Poof bags on the floor so he could sit without getting food all over him. I turned back to Kyle gesturing him to sit on the spot I made him on our sofa so he did.

"Alright, I'm just going to go get it, you wait here, then we can go, okay?" I said crouching down in front of him so we could be at eye level.

Kyle just nodded, so I headed for the stairs past my dad who was still standing in the room. I had put one hand on the railing and one foot on the first step when my dad stopped me.

"Hey, uh, son? Can I talk to you for a minute?" He asked.

I looked up at my bedroom door then followed him into the kitchen, "What is it?"

He pulled out two chairs from the kitchen table and sat in one, meaning I'm probably meant to sit in the other. So I did, he clasped his hands together ready to say what he called me in for. I didn't really care; in fact, I didn't give a shit. I just wanted to learn Morse Code. I looked out through the arch connecting the kitchen to the front room; Kyle was just sitting there picking Cheezy Poof remains out of the crack in our couch.

"So, Stan, I uh… didn't think we needed to talk about this since we—your mother and I—didn't think he'd actually… make it."

I whipped my head around to shoot him a look, "You guy's didn't think Kyle would wake up too?"

Maybe I said it too loud, because when I looked away back out through the arch, Kyle was looking at me like I broke his heart or something.

"Well, Stan," My dad said trying to get me to look at him, I wouldn't, "that's besides the point now, the thing is, Shelly told your mom and I about the rumor a few years ago."

I turned back to him, looking at him like he was crazy, "That's what you wanted to talk to me about? The rumor from two and a half years ago? Isn't it a little late for that? And how did Shelly know, two years ago she was still in California."

He put a hand on my shoulder, "She said a friend of hers who has a sister in your grade told her. But, the point is, no matter what, we will always love you, son."

"Wait, what?" I asked looking at him like he was crazy again. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You and Kyle… together…"

"What? Dad—no! That was just a rumor! He doesn't like me, I don't like him!" I found myself glancing over at Kyle while I said that—a little too loud again—he looked like he was going to fall apart, so I quickly changed my sentence. "Like that, I mean—I mean, we're still friends and all, but I'm not gay for him or anything."

He just patted my shoulder and smiled, "It's alright Stan, we still love you no matter what."

"UHG!" I yelled just trying to get out of there, my dad can be such a retard sometimes, actually, more like all the time.

"It's okay! We're Democratic, remember? We voted for Obama! We love you even if you have a boner for Kyle!" He yelled, trying to make some last second dent on me, fuck, could he just shut up?

"Come on Kyle, let's get out of here." I said pulling him up from the couch. "I'll be right back, I still need to get those papers, you just wait in the car, okay?"

He was trying not to laugh, or whatever the whole non-laugh thing he did now that he was mute, but he still nodded and went out the front door. I was going up the stairs, my dad was still yelling from the front room, my parents are a bunch of dumbasses.

* * *

Alright! Finally a good reason to be fluent in sign language and Morse Code. By the way, that Coke Six Flags commercial is an actual commercial, I hear it on my radio TOO MUCH.


	7. Plausible Suggestions

"I got it." I said sliding in behind the wheel next to Kyle.

'That's good.' He wrote, but there was more. 'So. What your dad said back there.'

"Kyle, he's just an asshole, I thought you knew that." I said starting the car and heading down the street for his house.

'Yeah, but, do you really…' He stopped writing for a second, I could tell he was trying to put something into good words, it was nice being at the stoplight. I just had to lean right to see what he was writing, 'have a boner for me?'

Exactly. Quoting exactly what my dad said. Was he nuts or something? Anyone else would think in a heartbeat that that wasn't possible, but maybe I did act… gay around Kyle? This was really weird, no, it's just my dad and his crazy accusations, it doesn't mean anything. That's what I need to say.

"What? No, are you crazy?" Dammit!

'Well, your dad did run out of the kitchen screaming it right in front of me, so I'm pretty sure he meant something by it.'

"Just forget it, alright? I don't, my dad's a dumbass, end of story, I don't want to argue with you." I said, now maybe that sounded like the kind of thing I'd say if I did like him. God this was annoying.

We got to a stop sign a second later, so I took the opportunity to glance over at him. He looked… disappointed? Or… sad? I don't know, I guess I did kind of raise my voice and pushed aside the problem.

"Kyle, Kyle, it's alright, okay?" I said putting an arm around his shoulders. "I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean to yell at you."

I say him mouth-mumble something, then he smirked a little. It was nice seeing him having a good time, back in the hospital he'd only want to talk about me, what's going on at school and stuff. He looked better when he was smiling, instead of… you know, not smiling. It was like it had all never happened and everything was going to be all right.

We reached his house in a few minutes, I parked my car in their driveway and we went up to the front door ringing the bell.

Mrs. Broflovski answered a second later, "Oh, Buhhbala, Stanley, your back." She said hugging Kyle, well; nearly suffocating him was a little more accurate.

'Mom!' Kyle mouthed trying to pry himself from her death grip.

"How was your class boys?" She asked after she released him and took a step back.

"It was good." I said coming in when she opened the door wider for us. "We learned the alphabet."

"That's good," She closed the door once Kyle and I were sitting on the couch, "Did the Kenny kid come with you?"

"No, he went to a movie with his bo—friend, his friend." I said catching myself.

Kyle gave me a weird look saying, "Shut up shut up shut up".

"Oh, that's nice, you boys want a snack? We have poptarts." She called going into the kitchen.

I looked over to Kyle who was nodding his head.

"Yes please, we're just going to go up to Kyle's room to practice our sign language, is that okay?" I yelled back.

She came out for a second with a box of cinnamon poptarts in one hand, "Yes boys that's fine, just don't make a mess." I got up then helped Kyle off the couch and we headed for the stairs. "Uh, Stanley? Can I talk to you for a minute down here?"

I looked over at Kyle who was a few steps above me; he just shrugged.

"Uh, sure." I said coming down and I followed her into the kitchen.

Kyle's kitchen was nicer that mine; that was defiantly true, I'm guessing with all the money his dad makes being a lawyer had something to do with it. I looked down at my feet going over to sit in one of the Broflovski's kitchen table chairs. Since when had they had wood floors? Last time I was in there kitchen, I think they had tiles, but, then again, the last time I was in there kitchen was around three years ago.

Anyway, they must have done some renovating; it looked like they replaced the whole counter top too.

Mrs. Broflovski was already sitting in the chair across from where I chose to rest. She was looking very serious, so naturally I thought, "Oh god, I'm going to die".

"Stanley, I would like to talk to you about this with my husband, but he's working on a very important case right now, so he couldn't be here." I gulped; maybe it was a little too noticeable, because she changed expressions to surprise. "Stanley, you're not in trouble."

"Oh, _phew_." I whispered to myself as quietly as I could.

"I wanted to talk to you about Kyle." She said.

"Alright."

"Because my husband and I are very busy all the time, and it was already decided Ike couldn't learn sign language right now because of school, you are the only one who can understand Kyle. Well, we've decided we don't want Kyle to always talk to us through writing note, we want him to be as comfortable as he can be now that he's finally left the hospital." She said looking at me with a blank stare.

"Alright, so what does this have to do with me?" I asked trying not to sound like a dick.

"We were wondering if you could just stay with him." She said, of crap, she was serious.

"Here?" I asked. "Forever?"

She shook her head, "No, not forever, just until something comes along, and you won't be stuck here, we were hoping your parents would help us out and you and Kyle could… just shift houses every once in a while."

"Like if our parent's were divorced or something?" I asked.

She nodded, "You and Kyle would stay here a while, then go and stay sometime at your house."

I thought for a minute, Kyle and I spending every waking minute together? It didn't sound that bad, I don't think anything could ever make us hate each other, so no way could this backfire, but I don't know if my parents would approve of Kyle staying with us, or me staying with the Broflovski's for so long. Alright, I was fine with it, but my parents were another story.

"Okay, but your going to have to call my parents and ask them." I said finishing my thoughts.

"That's fine, you can go back to Kyle now, I'll call them." She said getting up and went to the phone, so I left.

I found Kyle in the doorway to his bedroom; he was looking over all his old stuff. I snuck up behind him, you know, trying to scare him and crap, but when I saw him just standing there, I stopped and stood behind him. He took a few steps forward taking it all in, his stuff, still untouched—well, most of it. There was that one time when Kyle was still in the coma and I fell asleep in his bed when I was babysitting Ike. We made those prank calls, that must have been around the time Kenny and Butters got together. I was too preoccupied with Kyle waking up I hadn't noticed. I was a homo, and I didn't even notice them, weak. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm not gay, and I'm not exactly bi either, just attracted to certain people, but I have kissed a guy. No, not Kyle, or Kenny, or Butters, and certainly not the fat ass.

Remember a while ago when I said I didn't go back to the faggy little goths? Well… that wasn't entirely true either. God, Kyle was going to be pissed off at me when he finds out, but after he was in a coma, I was really depressed at first, so I turned to some bad things. Duh I started smoking, but I did… other stuff… It was right after Wendy had dumped me, maybe a couple days or a week later, I was sitting on a curb in the rain, a very familiar curb. I was crying, maybe because I had lost everything; my best friend, and my girlfriend. Not very much to lose, I know. It was that or because I was really high and my eyes were watering out of control. Yeah, I don't think it was the second one, hell, maybe I was high. Looking back on it now, I don't think there'd be anyway I'd do it again unless I was seriously stoned or something.

Anyway, I was crying on the curb by myself and I heard footsteps. I remembered looking up and seeing that one goth all by himself… Louis I think it was; the one with the red hair. He came over to me and we talk a while. He didn't try to make me feel better, seeing as that was a _conformist_ thing to do. I didn't really care, at the time; I didn't really care about anything. So we just talked… he flipped his hair some too. It wasn't until the end when I stood that we kissed.

I had an old coach a while ago when I was on the football team, after Kyle went in a coma I gave that up, he told us stuff and taught us better than some of my teachers did. Especially Mr. or Mrs. Garrison, I didn't even know if they were a boy or a girl now. Last time I saw them she was a woman, but that's beside the point. The point is, before one of our games, the coach called us all together and gave a little speech. We weren't playing anyone special, so I didn't see why it was necessary, but he said "Kids, tonight we are going to play football, but we always play, so what makes tonight so special? Well, nothing actually, you will probably never remember who we play tonight, or the score, or who even won, but you will never forget how you _felt_ about it."

That was probably the most right thing I had ever heard in my life. So, yeah, I don't actually remember whom we played, the score, I hope we won, but I don't remember. Actually, I don't ever remember how I felt about **that**. But I do remember what he said, and I definitely remember how I felt about kissing Louis.

To make a long story short; it just didn't feel right. Sure, he was pretty good—I guess—but the whole time we were… ahem… I just kind of realized what was going on. Kyle was in a coma, Wendy had dumped me for good, and I was KISSING LOUIS. So I immediately pulled away and went running down the street screaming Kyle's name all the way to the hospital. Now that I was thinking about it, maybe Louis started the rumor? Nah, that'd be too much of a "_conformist_" thing for him to do. Anyway, he gave me a few looks at school after that suggesting maybe we shouldn't have made it a one-time-thing, but I ignored him.

That's one of the reasons Cartman always calls me a twink, he even got some of the other guys to do that once they found out. Nothing stays a secret for long in a quiet little mountain town, especially South Park.

I wondered how Kyle would react when I told him I'd locked lips with a goth. And that it wasn't the fat bitch. He'd probably be really pissed.

The time I took thinking to myself, I didn't realize Kyle had sat on his bed and wanted me next to him. I went over and sat down, so he started signing.

'P…e…nn…y f…o…r y…o…u…r t…h…o…u…g…h…t…s.'

I laughed, "No."

'I h…a…v…e a p…e…nn…y.' He tried to convince me.

"Alright, I was thinking about Morse Code." I lied.

He slapped himself in the forehead then reached for my papers.

"Dude, take it easy, we don't have to rush, alright?" I said trying to push him off me.

He just rolled his eyes and flopped backwards onto his bed. I held up the paper for me to see, damn Morse Code is going to be hell a bunch harder than sign language.

"Alright, Kyle, you ready?" I asked handing the papers to him.

He shook his head, 'W…e s…h…o…u…l…d g…e…t K…e…nn…y t…o c…o…m…e o…v…e…r a…n…d l…e…a…r…n w…i…t…h u…s.'

"Okay, I call him, you start looking at those." I dug through my pants pockets trying to find my phone, one I did I punched in his number and waited for Kenny to pick up.

"Uh, hello?"

"Dude, Kenny! You and Butters done with your movie?" I asked once I heard his voice.

"Yeah, who knew MegaMind was going to be so amazing? We totally held our breath when they were kissing and the watch stopped—"

"Yeah, yeah, spoiler alert, I was going to see that movie… but now…" I said cutting him off before he inevitably gave away the ending.

"No, no, no no no. You have to see this movie, it's amazing!" He yelled into the phone.

"Yeah, fine, I'll go see MegaMind with Kyle some time, but I didn't call you to get a movie critique."

There was a pause, "…Really?"

I groaned, "Yes, Kyle and I were wondering, since you bailed on the sign language class, that you and Butters might want to come over and learn Morse Code with us."

There was another pause, "Yeah no, sorry, Butters has to get home and I already know Morse Code."

I pulled the phone away for a second to look at it with disbelief, "What, seriously?"

"…_Piff_, no! What the hell? You actually believed me?"

"Don't be such a dick, Kenny." I said half-laughing.

"No, I actually am fluent in Morse Code. I can prove it." He took in a big breath of air and started making dots and dashes. "**_._.** **._ ._. _ _ _ ._ _. … .._ _._. _._ … ._ … …**"

I was laughing harder now, "And what does that mean?"

He cleared his throat, "Cartman sucks ass."

"So my guess is neither of you are coming?" I asked.

"Well, Butters really can't, but I could come by and give you guys some pointers." He suggested.

"This is why we're friends, Kenny." I said jokingly.

"Now if only I could find a good reason to be friends with you."

"Alright, we'll see you in a while, Kenny. Bye."

"Kiss Kyle for me."

"Shut the fuck up." I said jokingly before I hung up, I turned back to Kyle who I found was trying to figure out a way to make a dot dash noise. "Dude, just use your whistle." I said pointing to it; it was still hanging around his neck.

He pulled up the whistle to look at it a minute before blasting out one dot and one dash, then turned to me and held up an A with his right hand.

'I…t…s… …a…n… …a?' I asked signing with my right hand.

'D…u…d…e y…o…u n…ee…d t…o p…r…a…c…t…i…c…e y…o…u…r s…i…g…n…i…n…g m…o…r…e b…e…f…o…r…e y…o…u l…e…a…r…n M…o…r…s…e C…o…d…e.' He pointed out. 'Y…o…u…r…e v…e…r…y s…l…o…w.'

"I know." I said sitting down next to him.

'W…e c…a…n w…a…i…t u…n…t…i…l K…e…nn…y g…e…t…s h…e…r…e t…o l…e…a…r…n M…o…r…s…e C…o…d…e.' He insisted. 'R…i…g…h…t n…o…w y…o…u n…ee…d t…o s…h…a…r…p…e…n y…o…u…r s…k…i…ll.'

We practiced until Kenny rang the doorbell and Mrs. Broflovski let him in. I was defiantly getting better, so was Kyle.

"Sup Stan, Kyyyllllleeee." He said sliding in the room on Kyle's carpet dragging out his name. "You're totally alive."

Kyle immediately jumped up from his bed and gave Kenny a hug hello.

"Hey, hey," Kenny said trying to pull him off, "I have a boyfriend, I missed you to." Kyle eventually let him go and sat down next to me, Kenny followed and sat on my other side whispering. "So, you give Kyle that kiss?"

"Fuck off Kenny." I said pushing him away from my face with my left hand.

"Fine then." He said heading for the door. "But Kyle," He turned around first before leaving and threw him a box from his bag, "happy two missed birthdays."

'T…h…a…t…s r…i…g…h…t I…m 16 n…o…w.' He signed opening the box as Kenny leaned up against his doorframe.

Inside was a new iPad with a stand and everything; damn I was jealous. Kyle pulled it out and held it up like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

'D…u…d…e h…o…w d…i…d y…o…u…r f…a…m…i…l…y a…f…o…r…d t…h…i…s?' He asked looking at it from all angles to make sure it wasn't just a cardboard replica.

I looked over at Kenny who looked bored with the subject, "You tell him, Marsh." He ordered walking over to Kyle's desk to check out his old lava lamp that wasn't on.

I turned back to Kyle who was looking up at me waiting, "Well, Kenny's family inherited a lot of money from their dead granddad or something, so they're loaded basically."

Kyle looked back at the iPad again like it wasn't happening.

'S…h…i…t a l…o…t h…a…pp…e…n…s i…n t…w…o y…e…a…r…s.' He signed.

"Let's just get on with learning Morse Code, guys." I said pulling Kyle and myself to our feet.

Kenny stopped staring at the lamp for a second to join us. We were standing in a circle—triangle, whatever—and I couldn't help but notice Kyle was taller than me, then Kenny was taller than him by about half an inch, and I was half an inch shorter than Kyle, so that made me the runt. I guess that means coffee really does stunt your growth? Tweek pretty much proved that, he hasn't grown an inch since eighth grade, leaving him at five foot five. I'm also guessing giving up football didn't help my height. Oh well, screw it. We were learning Morse Code.

"Alright," Kenny started, we all sat, "so you guys have a basic knowledge of Morse Code?"

Kyle and I both shook our heads.

He groaned, "Alright, I met some pretty interesting people when I frequently died," He didn't do that as much anymore, it kind of slowed down after middle school, "I learned many interesting skills. Some if I preformed right now would end up putting me in jail, but among those skills, I do—somehow—know Morse Code. Can't really remember who I learned it from, but I think the guy's name was Sam… Sammy? Samuel? Samuel Morse? I don't know, the thing is I know it and you don't so we'll start from scratch." He said, then cleared his throat while Kyle and I shot each other looks. "Tell me you guys at least know A?"

Kyle immediately did a grab for his whistle before blowing out a loud dot and dash.

"Alright, good." Kenny cringed rubbing his ears. "You know B?"

Kyle and I looked at each other before we both shook our heads.

"Uhg…" He groaned. "This is going to be a long night."

After two long hours of repeating and testing, Kyle and I successfully memorized the alphabet Morse Code. It took another hour learning all the numbers, but soon enough, we were able to move on and start practicing with each other. It was super hard to do, and super hard to figure out what the other person was trying to say. We went really slowly and most of the time had to repeat sentences.

"How you doing." I asked in dots and dashes.

'What?' Kyle signed back to me once I was done

"How you doing." I asked again.

'Fine, you.' He asked back using his whistle.

"I'm alright."

Kenny suddenly stood from the carpet and picked up his parka slinging it over his shoulder, "Well, you guys look set, I think I'll be going."

"So soon?" I asked getting up and following him down the stairs with Kyle behind me.

"Yeah, my brother wanted me home to help him clean our pool before he has his pool party." He said heading for the door putting on his coat.

"Your pool's going to be frozen over." I warned.

He opened the door and looked back at us for a minute, "Indoor pool, dumbass."

Kyle and I stood in the doorway watching him step out on the front step, then being taken out by a loose tile from Kyle's roof. It hit him square on the head making him fall over dead.

"Oh my god, they killed Kenny!" I yelled pointing at his body staining the snow on Kyle's lawn red.

'Y…o…u b…a…s…t…a…r…d…s!'

* * *

Eh, short chapter. MEGAMIND! it's seriously the greatest movie ever, you guys should see it. I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU'VE HEARD, HIS NAME IS NOT DEREK OR DYLAN, IT'S LOUIS I LOOKED IT UP ON THE INTERNET! the whole wont remember it but will remember how you felt about it... I got that from an old teacher of mine. it is so true.


	8. Annoying Accompaniments

Background information on "Speechless": originally when I was trying to think of a good first fanfiction to put on here, the idea was generally the same: A South Parker would be in a coma after a fight with Trent Boyett two and a half years before, but there were some changes made that is now the current Speechless. Originally it was Stan who would be in a coma because I wanted to suggest that Kyle would be the "seme". Also, that was the first thing I decided to change, Kyle would be in a coma, Stan would be the main character, to make Kyle the seme all I had to do was make him taller. Wink wink. Also originally Kyle would not wake up to be mute. If the story were the same, he would have lost all his memories and not know who anyone was, Kenny and Cartman, as a joke would tell him Stan was his boyfriend, ect. but the plot waking up from a coma with no memories I found was way overused on this site, especially South Park ficts, (and the fact that I had no idea where to go with the story,) Speechless was born! (More like risen from the ashes, actually, trust me.) Hope you enjoyed background information, I hope you like how I decided the story would go, now read!

* * *

I woke up in Kyle's bed again, this time I wasn't snuggled up with one of his pillows. Kyle was snuggled up against me; I was snuggled up against him. We were snuggled up together. Yes, we slept in the same bed; we always have, ever since we were little kids. He was still asleep; his face right in front of mine. I know shoes are important and all, and Clyde has an access free pass to all the ones he wants to give to his little girlfriends, but how could the girls put Kyle at the bottom of their list they made back in elementary? Kyle looks hell a bunch better than _Clyde_, shoes or no shoes. Him being right in front of my eyes just proves that.

Remembering it was now Monday, I pushed myself so I was sitting up in his bed without disturbing him; he just turned over away from me. I threw back to covers on my side and stepped down on an empty poptarts box we finished from the night before. I rubbed my left eye with the back of one of my eyes and sleepily looked over at his clock; 6:32. Yawning, I stood and put on some of his clothes his parent bought him around a week after he woke up.

By the time I had pulled up a pair of his pants he had woken and sat up, he had bags under his eyes.

'H…e…y.' He signed lazily.

"Sup, you sleep well?" I asked sticking my right arm through a sleeve of a black AC-DC T-shirt.

He nodded smiling, then fell back asleep, so I went downstairs to his mom and Ike in the kitchen already eating breakfast.

"Oh, hello Stanley, did you boys sleep well? Kyle still in bed?" Mrs. Broflovski asked looking up from one of her health magazines.

That made me remember when Kyle's parents first went to visit him. He was so shocked his mom lost so much weight he actually wrote down for them to read with the diary, 'Mom, you're not fat anymore'. She wasn't as pissed off as I thought she'd be, but it was still really funny.

"Yeah, Kyle's still asleep." I said sitting down with them.

"That's good." She put down the magazine. "Stanley, we need to talk about school."

I was confused, "Well, I have pretty good grades, but I don't really see why we'd need to talk about it."

"No, no, I mean Kyle." She took a quick sip of her coffee then went back to me. "When school is done today, I need you to come back here and take Kyle to his catching up classes, then you can both spend the rest of the week with your family." She said taking another sip of her drink.

The night before when she brought us more poptarts she told us my mom had agreed and we'd be spending a lot more time together. I was pretty excited, Kyle was stoked. Apparently spending all that time alone in the hospital while I was at school really did something to him, he was clingy. But, then again, I was also the only one who could understand him, so that had to have some effect on our relationship.

"Alright, classes?" I asked reaching for some Life cereal on the table next to Ike's bowl and poured some into my own.

"Yes Stanley," Kyle's mom continued, "Kyle has to take special classes every week day for a while before he can go back to school, and continue going to them for some time after."

I grabbed a milk carton and doused it on my cereal, then pushed some of it around with my spoon. It all made since, Kyle somehow needed to make up all the stuff he missed over the past few years, but how was he going to talk to his teacher, and how long before he can return to school?

"So, his teacher…" I said before shoving the spoon in my mouth.

"Understands sign language." She finished from behind her magazine again.

I walked to school by myself like I did everyday. The High School wasn't too far from Kyle's house. It would take around two weeks before Kyle came back, so that gave everyone plenty of time to become anxious of his return.

I was about to enter the main building when I noticed Butters on the front sidewalk looking around nervously. I couldn't just leave him there alone so I sighed and walked over to him to see what was the matter.

"Sup Butters, what's wrong?" I asked making him jump.

"S-Stan! Don't scare me like that!" He yelled then went back to looking up and down the street. "Have you seen Kenny? He's not here yet."

Right. Kenny.

"He died again after he left Kyle's house yesterday, Butters, let's get to class." I said trying to comfort him and pull him inside the building at the same time.

He ran off to his own class looking disappointed so I just went my own direction.

Lunch I was with Craig's group again. They were nice. Well, nicer than Cartman and the bitch, alright? Butters was with us, so that was fine. I'd told the whole phone book that Kyle had woken up, so they weren't entirely thrilled by our adventures at our sign language class. They took more interest in Kenny's death actually, that was defiantly a first. Kenny always died; what made this time special? My story wasn't too boring, was it? God I sound like a girl.

Butters was in the middle of explaining the plot of a new book he'd read for his literature class when disaster struck: Cartman. He walked right over with Wendy clinging onto him like the leach she is, and sat down next to Butters, who was next to me, which would seriously be illegal if I had actually gone through with that restraining order. That's right, 100 feet bitches.

"So guys, what's up?" He asked like it was a normal, everyday, average person thing for him to say.

"You're not welcome here." Craig said plainly.

"Yeah, get lost, fat fuck." Token agreed.

Then the bitch spoke up, "Shut your black fucking mouth, coon!"

I threw my head down on the table loudly; they always did this, "Oh God! She's r-really pissed off!" Tweek screamed.

"Put a dick in it, twink!" Cartman yelled at him.

"Don't call Tweek a twink, twink!" Craig yelled back flipping him off with _both_ hands, for all you that don't know: that means Craig has gone from pissed off to total shit rage.

"What's a twink?" Butters asked.

"You're a twink, asshole!" Cartman pointed at him.

"Butt licker!"

"Mofo!"

"Fat tits!"

"J***** *****!"

"C*** face!"

"Vaginal belch!" Cartman screamed at the top of his lungs making everyone go quiet before we all burst into laughter. "Stop laughing, I'm serious!" He tried yelling over us.

I, having not said anything the whole time, picked up my tray and dumped it in the trash leaving for my next class. Those guys are cool, but they're the real _juvenile_ ones.

"Stan, where you going?" Clyde called. "Lunch isn't over yet."

I ignored him walking out through the double doors around to the back of the school where I sat up against the wall pulling my backpack out in front of me and tarring through it.

"It's not enough!" I whispered to myself thinking of my patch, I still hadn't built up the nerve to take the damn thing off yet. Fuck, I was really addicted. "Just one." I said pulling out an emergency pack of cigarettes from my bag.

I was around halfway done when the goths decided to make their appearance; they weren't too interested in me though. They did there own thing, smoking with themselves on their own little mat by the back door to the kitchen next to the Dumpster. I only glanced over a few time, none of them were looking in my direction, the torrid was bitching about something to them, but I did catch Louis a few times. Goddamn, he wasn't taking a hint, it was almost three fucking years ago. He just kept looking up at me from his Boy's Gone Wild magazine; damn I needed another cigarette. And to punch him in the face, but another smoke would probably be a better idea.

I was taking out another one, and then I remembered Kyle and I felt fucking guilty. Maybe I just needed to start playing Heroine Hero again, that at to be better than this. I put my stuff away but I didn't go back to class, instead I ran all the way to the Broflovski house and climbed up the tree next to Kyle's window.

He was inside listening to music tapping the glass of his lava lamp as it started heating up. Now I wanted a lava lamp. I rapped on the glass a few times, and he looked up to see right outside his window, I think he had a miny-heart-attack. He ran right over and opened the window for me and I climbed in nearly slipping on the window frame.

'What the hell are you doing!' He mouthed.

"School's annoying, so I came to hang with you." I said casually flipping onto his bed.

Kyle went around and sat next to me, 'S…c…h…oo…l…s a…nn…o…y…i…n…g? T…h…a…t…s n…o…t a g…oo…d r…e…a…s…o…n t…o s…k…i…p.'

I explained Cartman and the guys, how they were always just pissing me off. He just sat there and nodded. Ever since he lost his speech, Kyle's become a really good listener.

Eventually, we finished talking so he reached over and turned off his radio that wouldn't stop blurting out love songs and we watched play-it-nows on his iPad; the one Kenny gave him. That reminded me, so I paused _ZombieLand_ and told him about Butters that morning. He just shrugged, it was expected.

We had to stop in the middle of the movie because he had to use the bathroom and I was required to go too as requested by his mom. She was paranoid he might fall over or something and no one would be there to find him, even if he had his whistle, it might not work or something stupid like that so we were really forced to spend all our time together.

I was really supposed to be right next to him, but his parents and Ike weren't home so I got away with standing just outside the door.

We didn't get back to our movie after; it was already three so we had to get Kyle to his lesson.

We were driving down the road in silence, just listening to some alternative music station because all the other stations were on commercials. I glance over to Kyle a few times when we were going down a back road; he was gazing out his window at the snow and the trees. He seemed distant now; he didn't say much during the movie or when I had shown up, something had to be the matter.

"Kyle, what's up?" I asked leaning his way slightly.

He sighed, 'N…o…t…h…i…n…g.' He signed.

"Dude, it's not nothing, what's wrong?" I asked again.

He gave in pulling out the diary and flipped to a new page, looking a little over his shoulder I saw he had written some actually entries in it like an actual diary.

'They say things happen for a reason. I was in a coma, neither of our parent's thought I'd wake up. Maybe I'm not supposed to be…' He stopped for a minute, '…alive.'

We were stopped at a red light in the middle of nowhere, no cars in sight, I just sat there looking at him. Kyle had his head down staring at the diary. Not like he was crazy or something, he was really serious, I couldn't blame him, maybe he _was_ supposed to be dead.

I wasn't going to say anything; that probably would have made things worse. The light by now had turned green, but we just sat there, the only sound was the radio.

"I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing/ just prayed to a guy that I don't believe in…" God I hate that song, Breakeven, now was not a good time.

'T…h…e l…i…g…h…t…s g…r…e…e…n.' Kyle signed.

"Yeah, I know." I breathed looking back at it leaning against my chair again but I didn't drive.

'W…e…r…e g…o…i…n…g t…o b…e l…a…t…e.'

"Oh well, your teacher's probably an asshole anyway." I said looking over at him with a sad smile. "Listen Kyle," He looked up at me, "it doesn't matter if you were meant to, you're still alive, and everyone's grateful you are." He smiled a little looking away. "Let's go."

We got to the lesson half an hour later, it was at the guy's house out in the middle of nowhere. We got out of the car and walked up the steps to the two-story house, how did they end up picking to paint their house white? It was practically invisible on the side of the hill it was on, and there were no neighbors.

Kyle was shivering going up their walkway; the wind was probably blowing at around forty miles an hour, so I didn't blame him as he retracted his arms into his jacket to keep them warm. He just should have put on another layer. I couldn't stand it, they had a really long walk up to their house so I stopped him and pulled my scarf around his neck.

'Y…o…u d…o…n…t h…a…v…e t…o.' He signed with his bare hand, why the hell wasn't he wearing mittens?

"Yes I do, you're going to get hypothermia." I warned pulling him up the rest of the steps.

The second we stepped on the guy's door mat he opened the door wide for us, like he was watching us freeze out there the whole time and didn't do a thing until then.

"Hello, Stanley? Kyle?" He asked letting us come inside. "Mrs. Broflovski told me you'd be coming together." He took off my scarf from Kyle's neck hastily. It pissed me off. "My name is Mr. Petty, so you can just call me… Mr. Petty."

I smiled a little, "Meaning like small?" I asked.

Kyle started mute laughing, 'N…o l…i…k…e a m…a…n…i…p…e…t…i.' He signed when he wasn't looking.

"Alright, Kyle, come with me to my kitchen," He said putting an arm on his back guiding him into the kitchen, I followed, but before I entered Mr. Petty turned around and stopped me, "Stan, wait out here. You can go up to my older son's room if you want, he's not home yet."

I shook my head; "I can't come with Kyle?"

"No."

That _really_ pissed me off, he left me there without even a reason. He didn't even tell me what room was his son's, and he would let me be with Kyle, the bitch. He even locked the kitchen door so I couldn't get in. I was seriously going to hate this guy.

Two hours of this everyday of the week; weak. I walked around a bit, they had a pretty big TV in the living room, but everything was white, even the TV. The stairs were white, the second stories carpet was white. I was exploring his upstairs, you know, because he pissed me off and I didn't really care about invading his space. I checked out all the rooms, a bathroom, an office, his master bedroom. I let myself in.

It was nice, small TV on the dresser, their own private bathroom. It also had a balcony with a view of the side of the hill behind the house. I left after looking at a few photos on a mirror above a second dresser. There were family photos of Mr. Petty with; I was guessing his wife, who had really dark hair compared to his light blonde. In between them was one of their sons, I had no idea how recent the photo was, but he was a little kid with black hair like mine, and a small smile on his face. Next to that photo was one of probably their other son, he had blond hair, the photo looked more recent, the kid looked around ten. I was going to look at some of the small frames standing up on the dresser, but someone was coming down the hall so I quickly turned to see who was in the doorway, it was the blonde son. Yep, defiantly ten.

"Who are you?" He asked hanging onto the doorframe.

"My name's Stan." I said inching slowly away from his parent's dresser.

He looked over at the dresser noticing that, then back to me, "Want to watch a movie with me? I know your friend is taking a class with my dad, lots of people have classes with him."

"Uh, sure." I said walking over to him, at least now I had something to do instead of probably getting into trouble and embarrassing Kyle.

He guided my further down the hall to what I thought was his room, "We could watch in my brother's room, he isn't home yet, but I don't think you'd like his movies, they're scary." He said taking a few steps back away from the door.

"Uh, let's watch down stairs," I said redirecting him down the hall, "you like Terrence and Phillip?"

He nodded, then ran ahead to set up his recording from ondemand. Once one of the episodes had started he flopped back down on their white leather couch, so I joined him.  
"Hey, what's your name?" I asked when the episode was around a quarter over.

"Nolan Petty." He said. "I'm seven years old." That was surprising. "How old are you?"

"I'm 16, but I turn 17 on October 19th." I said looking back at the screen. "My friend Kyle's here because he was in a coma for the past two and a half years, so he has to catch up in school."

"Oh, my mom was in a coma once." He said, again, I was surprised, I looked over at him gesturing for him to tell me more. "Yeah, she was in an accident," he looked around for a second, it was hard to hear him; the TV was way too loud, "she crashed her car into a… hey, where's the remote?" He asked getting off the couch to look around for it some more.

"I didn't touch it."

He hopped back on the couch giving up, "It's probably in my brother's room, he always ends up taking it up there. Can you get it? It's probably just on his dresser." He asked. "His room is the last one down the hall."

I got up looking up the stairs, "Yeah, sure. I'll be right back."

Nolan was cool, I guess if I just tuned out Mr. Petty, taking Kyle to his lessons wouldn't be too bad. I climbed up the stairs and followed his directions down their outrageously white hallway and pushed open the door. His brother's room wasn't white. It was dark and black and very 13th century dungeon style. I took a few steps in looking around at all the freaky black stuff, the bed covers, the big cloth pinned over the window, the black candles melted to the black dresser. The weird cat skeleton plushy in the middle of the dresser with little multicoloured pins sticking halfway out of it, the gothic mirror behind it with pictures ripped out of what looked like my High School's year book stuck to it with little critiques written over everyone's head.

Cartman: Fat Conformist

Bebe: Slutty Conformist

Kenny: Perverted Conformist

Kyle: Faggot Conformist

Stan—

I didn't want to read mine, I didn't want to have anything to do with this fucking lessons anymore, there were only three people who could sleep in this room, and one of them is still in Middle School, so there was no way they could have gotten their hands on a High School year book, none the less know all these people. That leaves two, and I really hope it isn't the second.

I spotted the remote on the edge of the bed, so I grabbed it and made a break from the room, I couldn't stand it in there. I had my foot on the first step going down the stairs when I heard the Petty's doorbell ring. Fuck me, that was probably the other brother. I sat down on the top stair and waited listening to see if I was right. Yes, the second story was just two halls against the wall looking down on the first story, but sitting on the top of the stairs there was a wall and no one could see me and I couldn't see them. If I got up and took a step down either hall I could have a pretty good view of the front door.

I heard Nolan get up and answer the door.

"Hey." He said in a different, lower tone. "Dad's in the kitchen with a student."

"Who?" The voice at the door asked, then it probably turned back outside because they were yelling now. "Bye guys, I'll see you tomorrow."

"A guy named Kyle." Nolan said then the door closed.

"Kyle? Kyle Broflovski?"

"Yeah, you know him?" Nolan asked, I heard him unpause the episode via the TV like I hadn't been there before watching with him.

"I used to, he was in a coma or something, why the hell do you watch this show? Did he come with anyone?"

Oh god, say no, please say no.

"Yeah, a friend of his."

"Really?" The dull voice was a little more excited now. "Who?"

"Why do you care? Stan or something."

Crap. Someone just kill me now, or please god let it not be who I think it is. Unfortunately, I heard the stomp of boots heading for the staircase, so I got up and ran down the stairs, maybe I could pass them.

"Fuck!" They yelled as I crashed straight into them, but I was the only one to fall over. "Marsh!" They yelled, then the tone changed as I pushed myself back up rubbing my head. "What a pleasant surprise."

I opened my eyes, and, fuck me, it was Louis. Maybe it would have been better if I had know his last name before I had put myself into this kind of position. Louis Petty? That's just fucked up. He had a really goofy grin on his face and his hands on his hips. Yeah, fuck me. Maybe I should get a restraining order against **him**. Yeah, I was going to have to tune out a lot more than Mr. Petty if I was going to survive this.

"Leave me alone, Louis." I said getting up and pushing past him.

"You're such a cocktease." He whispered probably smiling while following me back out to their living room.

"You're a freak." I turned back to him giving him the 'you're a crazy sex pixie' stare.

I sat back down on the couch handing Nolan the remote, he just sat next to me extra close. No respect for personal space, I swear, was he horny or something? That or seriously wasted.

"That's a conformist retort." He said smiling towards the TV screen like the Cheshire Cat.

Oh god, would someone please save me.

Apparently, I'm a pretty worthy, religiously acceptable person, so my wish was granted. I had no idea how long Nolan and I had spent watching T&P because five minutes stuck next to the goth and Kyle and Mr. Petty stepped out from the kitchen done with the lesson. We all looked over as they entered the room and stared back at us.

'Help me!' I mouthed to Kyle.

He looked over and saw Louis cuddled up next to me and immediately lost it. He ran over and pulled me up from the couch, I was pretty happy to see him too. Louis got up as well, Nolan just went over to stand by his dad's side.

"Uh, do you all know each other?" Mr. Petty asked.

'Unfortunately.' Kyle mouthed to me, I smirked in return, Louis was not impressed. 'L…o…u….i…s w…h…a…t t…h…e f…u…c…k?"

"I don't read sign language." He said simply, they were glaring at each other now.

'W…e…ll y…o…u s…h…o…u…l…d u…n…d…e…r…s…t…a…n…d t…h…i…s.' Kyle signed, then flipped the bird at him while snaking his arm around my shoulder.

"I have no idea what's going on here." I heard Nolan say.

'L…e…t…s g…o S…t…a…n.' Kyle signed pulling me towards the door. 'T…h…a…n…k y…o…u M…r P…e…t…t…y.'

"You're welcome Kyle, we'll see you tomorrow." He said holding the door open for us, Kyle's arm still around my neck.

"See you tomorrow, Stan." Louis called.

Kyle and I exchanged stories on the ride home, I explained Louis up to the point of the kiss, that I left out. Good news for me, he thought Mr. Petty was annoying too and couldn't wait to stop going to the lessons. I had literally no problems with that. A restraining order was **really** sounding good right now.

So, I had to avoid annoying fights at school, dodge Louis at his house, and tolerate Mr. Petty's fucking rules when Kyle was in lessons. It was tough, and it also meant I spent a lot less time with Kyle, but we managed for a week.

The next week was the exact same deal, I had figured out a few ways I could escape Louis; locking myself in their bathroom with Kyle's iPad he let me borrow when ever I wanted, talk about super best friends.

Louis also learned ways to keep me from escaping, like he bailed the goths right after school and while I was getting Kyle he'd drive home so he could be there to let us in. That made it practically impossible for me to completely pretend he wasn't there fucking with my life. He managed to back off when ever Kyle was with us, so I escorted him to their bathroom whenever Kyle paused the lesson to use it. Finally one of his mom's crazy rules came in handy, that gave me an excuse to lock myself in the bathroom with him. Then when he left I'd just hide in there the rest of the time.

Kenny still hadn't come back, Butters was getting really nervous now, that just lead to more stress in our group. Not to mention by then all the Christmas stuff had started showing up in all the stores, so all of us were pretty pissed off all the time. Damn Christmas.

Finally enough, the first two weeks were over. It was October 4th, early in the morning, the day Kyle was due back to school. We were really excited, the whole night before we had spent drinking Code Red watching all three Lord of the Rings. Yeah, we were having caffeine crash for a whole hour before we fell asleep in my bed, and two hours later we were getting up to get ready for school. Not a very good combination.


	9. Awkward Situations

"Kyle! Kyle, wake up!" I yelled nudging him.

He rolled over and gave me a dead, zombie look, then turned back over to go back to sleep. I shook him some more, it was already… I looked over at the clock; 5:30. Damn, we were up early, but we both had to get ready for school, and Kyle said something the night before about a shower.

"Kyle, get up." I managed to pull myself out of bed and get dressed; he just sat up lazily and smiled.

'Good morning.' He signed, just a few weeks and we could both sign really fast now, he was still better than me though.

I grabbed his whistle from the top of my dresser and threw it to him, he caught it and slung it around his neck then got up and headed to the bathroom, I followed. Shelly was off in collage over in California and my parents were too lazy to have gotten up yet, so Kyle got to cross the hall in boxers without getting caught. I was required to follow him and be there while he took his shower, I could just brush my teeth or my hair or something. When we were both inside I locked the door, we had done this before, it's not like we _enjoyed_ being covered in sludge. Especially after all the days I was being smothered in Louis, and he had the habit of lurking around in place I thought he wouldn't be, so he managed to pin me to the carpet a couple of times. That's how I found out he had a tongue piercing. Thinking back on it, I really needed to brush my teeth again.

I sulked over to the sink, maybe I should just tell Kyle about what happened, he didn't exactly know why I couldn't stand Louis, he just went with it, so I'm guessing he must be a little curious. Thank god he never caught him in the act; Kyle might have lost it. Then again, maybe that wouldn't be so bad, maybe he would have ripped his head off. That would be enough to calm me down, especially now that I knew we still had to go there a couple more **months**. That's another reason I hate how Kyle was in a coma for two and a half years.

I pulled out my toothbrush and looked over at Kyle as I squeezed out some toothpaste on it. He was running the water in the bathtub making sure it was a good temperature. Kneeling down like a dog on all fours with his butt stuck up in the air, I kind of laughed. That made him look over at me to see what was funny, I just turned back to my toothpaste.

I brushed my teeth, then mouthwashed, but that shit was discussing so I had to wash my tongue with one of those bad breath brushes. When I looked back over at Kyle he had already gone in, his boxers on the floor next to the shower tub thing. We needed to get a new one, it was yellow and uncleanable so it was more of a pea soup green colour. That was also the colour of the curtain around it.

I had set up a chair next to the shower for when this happened, so I went over and sat in it. It was a good thing we had also kept up on our Morse Code. I was also pretty good at reading lips now.

"Hey Kyle," I spoke up, "you want to bail on your lessons today, just hang out? Go to the mall or something?"

'Yes please!' He said using his whistle, yeah, that was really coming in handy.

"Alright, we just have to avoid Louis at school, then maybe he'll think we're home sick or something."

'Fine with me.'

Kyle and I had not been spending much time together one on one. We were separated during lessons, I had to go to school, and even though we were together at sign language class, there were other people there too. We actually talked to Vicki a few more times too, you know, just to mess with her some more to let off steam. That only left Saturdays open for us, and that was the day I had to do homework so I wouldn't get behind. Speaking of school, I had to get a new schedule now because Kyle and I had to be in the same classes. I was being promoted to advanced math class thanks to Kyle, which surprisingly had less homework I heard. Also, a lot of the classes I had before I shared with Cartman who coincidentally had a lot of classes with Wendy, so now I would get to actually pay attention to the teacher instead of being forced to watch them flirt. They either sat in front of me, or were super loud.

"So, the mall?" I asked.

'Sounds good hey can you get me another bar of soap?' he asked.

"Sure." I got up and went over to our cabinets to pull out another bar; we had a real surplus of soap left over from when Shelly stayed with us.

I walked back over to the curtain where Kyle had hidden himself but had his arm extended out grabbing for the soap. I laughed watching him grabbing at the air, so I decided to have some fun; waving the bar around watching his hand search for it.

I was really laughing, pulling it back after he had barely brushed it, "Come on, go for it!"

He did. Now I was not laughing. Kyle just suddenly snatched for it, grabbing my arm and I took a step backward in surprise. The next moment I was jumping forward as he fell out slipping on the bottom of the tub.

"Holy fuck!" I yelled when we had stopped falling. "Don't do that!"

He just looked up at me upside-down, 'How is fuck holy?' He mouthed.

I had caught him luckily, hell knows what would have happened if I hadn't, he had spun around after letting go of my arm, but still fell, so I was holding him upside-down with his head against my stomach, his legs still halfway in the tub. One word: awkward.

I helped him up a second later; he looked about done with the shower anyway. I just handed him the soap, but he turned off the water. We were standing there; I was doing my best to not look at him.

'Can I have a towel?' He asked using Morse Code. 'The air in here is really cold.'

We both looked over at the window above the toilet as a voice came through it, "If you're going to take a shower, don't forget to bring a towel!"

"Shut up, Towely!" I screamed back at the window, then turned around to grab one off the rack for Kyle. "Here," I said handing it to him, but before I did, I stopped.

Dude. Just… **dude**. Oh my god. Holy fuck that isn't so holy.

'Stan?' He said. 'Can I dry off now?'

I shook my head, but my eyes didn't leave his crotch. _Holy shit_, motherfucker! Daaaayyyyyymmmmm! I just pointed.

Kyle looked down to see what I meant, then turned around like he was either going to throw up or burst out laughing.

'Yeah my junk, what about it?' He asked.

I just turned him around, "No not that, holy… just, oh my god."

I couldn't help it, they were butiful.

'What?' He asked, hands on his hips.

I just continued pointing and staring, "Ginger pubes."

He started mute laughing, 'Dude seriously Stan?' He grabbed the towel from my hand wrapping it around his waist hiding them from view, and waking me up from my trance. 'You're juvenile.'

All right, he and Ike may not be related, but damn did they act alike.

"No, dude!" I yelled as he walked over to the sink. "You know how rare ginger pubes are? They're legendary! Must… stare at…" I said, maybe a little too much like a creeper.

He turned around smiling like he couldn't believe I was serious, I was. I was very serious. They were amazing. Just as red as his hair, just… more magical or something. I'm not kidding; I could spend hours just drooling over them. Ginger pubes.

'Really?' He asked looking at me like I was a wild animal pervert.

I looked back up at his face and nodded, "Dude, they have magic hypnotizing powers." I said smiling as freakily as Louis was.

He snorted, 'We're talking about my pubes.'

"Your _ginger_ pubes." I corrected; he just turned back around to the mirror reaching for his toothbrush so I ran over, fell on my knees and wrapped my arms around his legs. "PLEASE! I MUST HAVE THEM!" I screamed, was I high or something?

Kyle just stepped out of my grasp, 'Let's go get dressed, it's almost time to go to school.'

Once I had regained my composure during breakfast Kyle forgave me for going crazy. But, apparently he still had no idea why ginger pubes were so special.

We were walking to school together; he forgot an extra layer _again_, so I let him stick his bare hands in my right coat pocket.

'So.' He said using the whistle. 'My pubes.'

"I'm serious, very alluring." I said, he just bumped me with his elbow smiling telling me to knock it off. "You sure I can't see 'em?"

'Maybe after school.' He said, but his expression gave away he wasn't nearly as serious as I was. 'But, we're still friends and all, I mean, it's not just my ginger pubes?'

"_Pefft_." I huffed; now I wanted a subject change. "Yeah, course, red rug."

He pushed me again; 'You're so gay.' He said then blushed a little.

"Let's just get to school." I said as we approached the building. "Then we can go to the mall, they put in a movie theater there."

'Wicked!'

The second we stepped into the school the first thing we heard was the intercom, "Stanley Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, please report to the main office."

Down the hall everyone was in an uproar saying things like "Kyle's back", "I thought he was in a coma still", and "I didn't he was going to live". Apparently Kyle had heard some of it too, he was walking slower with his head down looking really depressed.

"Come on, Kyle," I said taking one of his hands pulling him along with me to the office, "just forget them."

We got to the office; Pip was the only one working there at the time, so he handed us seven envelopes with our teacher's names on them.

"Give these to your teachers, they'll know it means." He said then looked over at Kyle. "Well, welcome back, Kyle."

Kyle made a smile for half a second, then turned away with the envelopes in his hand, 'Stan, we should go.' He signed.

"Alright, later Pip." I called catching up with Kyle as he walked down the hall to our first class together.

Our first class was Bio, so we put Mrs. Knapp's letter on her front desk and took our seats at the first table in the middle row at the very front of the class. The room was dark, the only light coming from the Smart Board at the front of the room that was just being projected white; all the other lights were off. There were a few other kids in the room standing around talking to their friends. We overheard a few of them talk about us, I'm sure they were pointing wondering what I was doing in this class and what Kyle was doing outside the hospital. I looked up from the diary Kyle and I were writing each other notes in when I heard a few familiar voices walk in the door. Kenny had come back from the dead again, he was walking in talking to someone still outside the science room and holding a whole stack of textbooks. Behind him was… Marjorine? They were talking about something, Butters was smiling behind all his makeup and shit, I'm guessing they chose today to come out of the closet. I nudged Kyle with my elbow and he looked up and saw them. Butters wearing his old way too short now dress with that stupid floral pattern, Kenny liked it; it was obvious the way he kept pulling on the edge of it making Butters uncomfortable.

"Let's get our seats." I heard Kenny say, then they walked over our way, Kenny was the first to spot us. "Dude! Stan, Kyle, you guys are in our class!"

"I guess we are." I said looking around like I had no idea.

'What's Mrs. Knapp like?' Kyle asked Kenny using Morse Code, it was funny watching all the people around us suddenly cover their ears and jump not expecting Kyle's whistle.

"She's kind of crazy, she's got crazy platinum blonde hair." He said, Butter just stood there dumbfounded, obviously he didn't understand Morse Code.

"So, Marjorine." I said getting Butters' attention. "I like the eye shadow."

He looked embarrassed and played with one of his ponytails, "Thanks Stan, Kenny did it for me."

"Butters!" Kenny yelled covering his mouth with his sleeve. "I told you not to mention that detail!"

Kyle and I just looked at each other and laughed.

"So, you guys doing anything after school?" Kenny asked. "I mean, besides being raped by the goth fag."

I frowned, Kenny knew I hated that, "We're ditching to go to the mall, maybe see that movie you were talking about."

He smiled, "That's nice, you guys on a date?"

Kyle threw his head down on the table, probably remembering this morning, 'Shut it Kenny, we just want a breather.'

"Yeah, Ken." I spoke up smirking. "Don't make ginger pubes upset."

His expression automatically changed, Butters just looked confused, Kenny was now smiling like I was like Louis was, "Ginger pubes?"

I nodded.

"Ginger pubes! Ginger pubes!" Kenny sang sitting on top of out table pulling Butters up next to him, now Kyle's head was raised, and boy was he not impressed.

'Stop saying that!'

"Ginger pubes?" Kenny asked.

"How 'bout red rug?" I suggested.

"Carrot crotch?" Kenny added.

"Crimson carpet?"

'Alright, subject change!' Kyle said blowing his whistle furiously.

"Rusty nuts?" I whispered quietly.

Kenny and I burst out laughing; Kyle just did a face-palm. He high-fived me just as the bell rang and our teacher walked in. Everyone scrambled to their seats as she went over to her desk, Kenny and Butters sat at the table to my left together. The first thing she did was pick up our envelope and read the letter. When she was done she dropped it down on her desk looking out into the crowd of students, her mouth hanging open.

"Uh," She picked up the letter again skimming it, "Stanley Marsh and Kyle Broflovski?"

"We're here." I said, Kyle and I raised our hands.

"Can I talk to you in the hall for a minute?" She asked then walked over to the door holding it open for us.

I helped Kyle out of his seat and we followed her out into the hallway. She closed the door quietly behind us and sighed.

"This letter from the office," She said looking down at it in her hands, "Kyle, you recently woke up from coma?" Kyle nodded, so she continued. "And you can't talk." He nodded again. "Alright." She went on to summarize what they had been learning about and then let us back into class.

The rest of our teachers up until lunch were the exact same. The only difference was we didn't really know too many other kids in our classes. We did see Token once, but he was in the back of the class and we were in the front of all of ours so we just waved at the beginning of class.

Lunch was alright, we sat with Craig and his gang and Kenny and Marjorine. They all really welcomed Kyle back. No one was really surprised with Butters; a few of the guys were asking Kenny questions though.

"So, you're really not into tits?" Craig asked.

"I wouldn't say that," He said pulling Butters closer to him tilting his head against Butters' stuffed bra, "Marjorine is just enough for me."

"So Kyle, what's it like not being able to talk." Clyde said changing the subject.

'It's all right. Kind of annoying when I have to talk to people who can't understand.' He signed to me so I could translate it to spoken English.

I looked over in the middle of lunch later at Cartman's table, he and Wendy were glaring over at Kyle, luckily he hadn't noticed yet.

Lunch was over soon enough, so far and we had successfully managed to dodge Louis. All we had now were a few more classes and we were home free, or, mall free I guess. We were in Literature right after lunch, Butters was in this class, but he was in the back so we were alone in the front again.

We were in the middle of a lecture about a book we were going to have to read then right a ten-page essay on and Kyle and I were passing notes to each other, even though we were right next to each other.

'Were should we go at the mall?' I wrote out and handed it to him when Mrs. Davis wasn't watching.

He smiled and scribbled down an answer, then passed it back, 'I don't know, has Butters always dressed like this?' Yeah, he hadn't seen Butters until today.

'No, just today, I guess they just decided to come out today.' I wrote then slipped it on his desk.

'Yeah, coming out. I wanted to talk to you about something like that actually.' He had wrote, when I was done reading I looked back up at him, he was biting his lip and looking down.

I pulled out another post-it from my bag and began writing out a reply, 'Sure dude, you can tell me.' Then I handed it to him.

He took his time writing it, stopping to think ever few seconds and scratching out some parts to rewrite them. It looked like he was done then he drew a little scribble on a lower corner.

He was handing it to me when Mrs. Davis caught us, "Stan! Kyle! No note passing in class!" She yelled standing up from her desk.

Kyle immediately recoiled his arm keeping the note and turned bright red. All the other kids had looked up now to see what was going on. I looked over at Kyle, he looked at me and mouthed, 'We're caught.'

"Kyle, why don't you come up to the front of the class and read your note allowed for the whole class?" His face turned white, but he stood up and went to the front of the class unfolding the note, but he didn't read it, he couldn't. "Kyle," She came around to his side, "read the note!"

'I can't!' He signed over to me, crap, we forgot to give her our letter!

"Uh, Mrs. Davis," I said getting up and pulled her envelope from my bag to give to her, "you might want to read this first."

Kyle sighed and relaxed; she just took the envelope and read the letter. Kyle smiled over to me, finally something good about him being mute, he would be saved from public humiliation.

"Oh…" She said out loud still reading the letter. "I'm sorry to hear about the accident Kyle," She said turning to him, he just looked to the side, we had heard it all before, "I'll just read the note for you." She said snatching it from his hands. "You and Kyle go sit down."

Everyone in the class was now anxious to hear what it was we were talking about, Kyle looked like he was going to keel over any second, but we sat down in our seats anyway. Kyle looked up at our teacher as she opened up the note and read what I had said, then his reply. She opened her mouth and I swear, out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw tears running down Kyle's face, but by the time I looked over at him he had his head down on the desk.

"I—uh…" Mrs. Davis said rereading the note. "I'll just keep hold of this, alright? Get back to reading, kids." She said, then went over to her desk, sat in her chair, and threw the note in the trash. It was crumbled up in a little green post-it ball.

Kyle still didn't look up; he just hid behind his arms on his desk. I reached over and patted him lightly on the back, behind us everyone was whispering about it. I looked back at Butters, he looked concerned then shrugged at me, I shrugged back.

I was walking out Mrs. Davis' class in the back of the group of kids, I noticed Kyle wasn't next to me as I was halfway out the door, so I looked back as the last of the kids left. Kyle was by our teachers desk pointing at her trash basket, she nodded and he reached down and took out our note still crumbled in a little ball and shoved it in his pocket, then caught up with me.

"What was that?" I asked as we were walking down the hall.

'Nothing.' He signed smiling at me.

Our last period was art just because Kyle and I couldn't decide on any other class, so we were hiding in the art room after school waiting five minutes so we wouldn't run into Louis in the parking lot. After, we walked over where Kenny and Butters were so we could get a ride. They were in Kenny's convertible porsha, Kenny pinned him down in the backseat, so they didn't notice me get in behind the wheel and Kyle slip in the passenger seat. Butters was the first one to notice us once I started the car, so he sat up pushing Kenny off him and buckled his seat belt like we did this all the time.

"Wh-where we going, fellas?" Butters asked as Kenny grumpily sat down refusing to use his seat belt.

"Mall." I said over the honking from the other cars in the lot. "Kenny, if you don't want to die again I suggest you buckle up."

He grunted, "Yeah, especially with you're driving." Butters had to reach around him to do it himself.

"Uh, can we switch drivers?" Butters asked. "We could drop you guys off at your houses or something, we have to go… do errands."

Oh god, I really didn't need to know that, he could have just demanded the car, now I was going to accidentally imagine them in the backseat.

"Yeah, sure, just don't get it on in front of us." I said pulling out of the lot finally.

"Stan, you're such a perv." Kenny grinned from the backseat. "We have to pick up a friend from camp, we'll drop you guys at the mall, alright?"

A friend from camp? Who else did they know besides us? Oh well, Kyle and I were going to the mall, so I didn't care.

We switched drivers halfway down the road and they left us at the mall before speeding away down the road.

"So, where do you want to go first?" I asked looking over at Kyle, he shrugged. "I heard Victoria's Secret was having a sale."

He thought I was serious, he looked crap in your pants scared. I just laughed and we walked inside. The first store in the front was Sears on the first floor so we had to walk through all the washers and dries before getting to the rest of the mall. We ended up watching a movie then going to a restaurant. Kyle was munching on some shrimp; he looked pretty happy eating his shrimp watching me make weird facial expressions for his entertainment, so I took the opportunity to tell him.

"Uh, hey, Kyle?" I said to get his attention, so he looked up from his cocktail sauce for a second. "You know, the reason I can't really stand Louis. Well, when you were in a coma we kissed."

He just stared at me for a minute chewing on his shrimp halfway in his mouth, then signed; 'You kissed my unconscious body?'

"Oh, uh, no." I said half-laughing. "You were in a coma and I was talking to Louis one day, and we ended up… kissing."

'Ooooooooooooooooooooooh.' He signed making way too many O's.

He just went back to his shrimp, kind of looking disappointed.

"Well?" I asked after a long pause in our conversation.

'Well what? Do you like him or something?' He asked.

"NO!" I yelled, maybe a little too loudly, he looked up at me in surprise. "I mean, I didn't even want to, we just did, and I didn't like it, it just happened, and I thought you should know." I said looked over at the carpet of the restaurant.

'Are you gay?' He asked tapping it out on the table.

"Uh, not exactly, but sort of, I guess." I said quietly. "Bi alright? Just attracted to certain people, definitely not Louis."

He seemed relieved, 'Come on dude, we'd better go, our parent's might be worried.' He signed standing from our table.

We had already paid for the meal when we came in, so I got up quickly and followed him out, my eye's on his coat pocket remembering our note, maybe I should have talked to him about that. Oh well, he wanted to talk to me about it anyway, he'll do that eventually.


	10. Hesitant Bystanders

Sorry for the wait, you guys, I made it an extra long chapter to make up for it.

* * *

I felt bad for Kyle. I felt really bad, every where we went at school people talked about us. They talked about Kyle, and they talked about Kyle and me. I don't think he noticed it, or I really hope he didn't notice it, some people said really nasty stuff. Apparently some of them still remembered the rumor.

"There goes Kyle."

"I didn't think he was going to wake up, did you?"

"No way, I thought for sure he was going to die."

"He deserved to, he's a fag!"

"Shut up, he'll hear you."

"No, he woke up and can't hear, remember? He's deaf!"

"No dumbass, he can't talk!"

That's what everyone was saying. Kyle acted like he didn't hear it so I had no idea what was really going on in his mind. He didn't bring any of it up the whole week, so I just brushed off the thought and focused on the more important stuff. You know, Kyle and I having a good time whenever we got the chance.

Every night we stayed up watching movies on his iPad, mostly comedies. The really weird thing about everything going on was it was like Kyle having been in a coma and being mute meant nothing. The guys just acted the same around like they did before the whole accident; that also meant lots of the other kids continued calling him stuff like fag. Again, he didn't have any responses and never brought it up, so I didn't really know what to think.

The only weird thing he did that I thought might have something to do with it was want to go down to the park every day after his lesson. I would not have had anything wrong with that, but the thing is he liked to go _alone_. I couldn't help but find that kind of suspicious.

The other weird thing I noticed that wasn't Kyle was the fat ass decided to spend every lunch the rest of that week sitting with us. Kyle just stared at them while Cartman and the bitch ate their lunches, they never said a word, but Cartman always kept looking up from his tray to glare at Kyle who just returned it. I heard he was the one who got some of the other kids to poke fun at Kyle for being mute. Specifically the kids who sat right behind him in our classes.

The way they did it? Bug the hell out of him doing anything they could think of while saying the same phrase over and over again, "If you don't like it, just _tell_ us to stop."

Kyle tolerated it well enough, he just sat stilly at his desk with his hands clenched into tight fists slightly shaking them sometimes whenever one of the kids poked him in the back of the neck with a sharpie marker. His neck was nearly all black, they were running out of empty spots, but he never raised his hand to tell me to tell them to knock it off, he just… took it.

That's why I felt bad for him. I might have not known what he was really thinking about the whole time, but his eyes really gave it away. He was really near breaking point, I didn't blame him. A fucking rumor caused him to be metaphorically dead for two and a half years, it practically took away his first amendment, and people were still making fun of him. Not to mention that not many people thought he'd wake up, I was wondering how he'd react when he found that out.

Kyle didn't say much at school, whenever he signed to me someone had to try and be funny mimicking him poorly. He talked to me a lot when we were alone, I was really the only one he could talk to, that and I was still the only one who could understand him.

I remember that Thursday night we were sitting at my dinner table with my family eating, we were talking about some recent burglaries on the news.

"I heard the guy just takes some sort of expensive common household items to sell online, like lawn mowers and stuff. The TV reporter said a lot of South Park homes had already been hit." I said talking to him and my parents.

"Stanley, don't talk with food in your mouth." My mom scolded simply.

"Did you even hear a word I said?" I asked.

"No, Stanley," My dad spoke up, "I heard what you had to say, but your mother's right. But, Sharon," She turned to look at him, "this morning I was going out to the garage, and our shovel was missing, I think we were robbed by that burglar."

I looked over at Kyle to see what his thoughts on it was, he just sat there looking at my dad with his mouth hanging open in shock and fear. …All right, maybe not fear, but definitely shock.

My mom just got up from the table and headed for the phone, "I'll got get the phone book, get our locks changed again."

We didn't bring up that subject again.

The next day Kyle didn't sign a word. He was dead signlent since the moment he woke up that morning—I just love using bad puns, especially to people who become very annoyed of them—and wouldn't talk to me. He didn't even talk Morse Code with Kenny during Bio. I'm guessing it helped him with the taunting, all the shit heads.

When we got to lunch, Kenny and Marjorine were no where in sight, apparently the night they went to "pick up a friend from camp" failed, they came to school the next day both exhausted, and I would have known if they had stayed up all night banging it. Kenny wasn't smiling, that means nothing dirty went on. They just sulked around the school trying to find their classes bumping into things. My second guess was that they were either high or having hangovers, but that was disproved by the counselors of our school who noticed them acting like wasted morons. The point was, they weren't at lunch, but they weren't out sick or playing hooky because we saw them first period, so we just went looking for Craig's gang.

Unfortunately, the time Kyle and I had spent looking for the blondes meant Cartman and Wendy were already at their table, sitting in our seats, making Token and Clyde actually laugh. Yeah, all bad signs. Kyle and I sat down anyway; I made sure to be between Kyle and the fat ass. Every one stopped laughing at once and watched us sit, Cartman immediately took the opportunity to tell the joke he made _himself_ about Kyle's new position that he had actually stolen from someone's facebook page.  
"Hey gahs, what's this?" He asked putting one hand on the table and raising the other above his head then wiggled all his eight fingers at once.

"You being retarded?" Craig guessed narrowing his eyes.

I couldn't help but snicker.

"No," Cartman said calmly, then looked over at Kyle making them look over at Kyle, "it's the Jew playing the piano and singing at the same time." He yelled accidentally spitting all over my food.

We all looked back at his wiggling fingers, then Token and Clyde went into an uproar. It wasn't original and it wasn't cleaver; it wasn't even funny.

"You stole that from a Helen Keller joke." I hissed pushing my tray away from me.

Craig face-palmed, "This is just _embarrassing_."

Token and Clyde stopped laughing a second later to realize it wasn't that good of a joke too and started hammering him, the whole time no one even looked over at Kyle to see what he thought of the whole time. Two and a half years ago, the Kyle I knew would have jumped Cartman and tackled him to the ground, just for saying something stupid like that. Now he was staring at the ground away from me and I couldn't see his face.

Cartman said something else to get them riled up again, but I didn't hear it, I was watching Kyle, he was shaking like Tweek does.

"Alright, I got more!" Cartman said about to tell another joke about Kyle.

Kyle couldn't take it anymore; he stood up from the table, grabbed his bag and ran.

"Now you've done it, fat shit!" I yelled turning back at Cartman for a second to pick up my bag then started running after Kyle.

I was running around the school like a mad goose or however that simile goes, everyone seemed to shoot glances at me as I ran by. I only stopped a few times to asked so kids I knew personally if they had seen Kyle walk by. No one seemed to know where he was.

I searched for a while, but I didn't find him, our old counselor Mr. Macky did. He switched schools to the middle school when we graduated elementary because he didn't think anyone else was fit to counsel us. He was probably right, he did that again when we went onto high school too. He was standing outside one of the boy's bathrooms outside the cafeteria yelling at the door, there were a couple of students hanging around him too.

"What's going on?" I asked Jimmy who was among the crowd.

"M-M-Mr. Macky found someone l-locked themselves in the… in the… in… in the… in the boys bathroom. H-he says they won't… come out." He stuttered.

"I swear, whoever's in there, you'd better unlock this door, m'kay?" He yelled.

There was no sound in response to his yelling, just some random bangs on the door from the other side, god dammit, that's probably where Kenny and Butters where. Locked in the boy's bathroom doing whatever it was they were up to. I was about to walk away when the banging didn't sound all that random anymore, it kind of clicked in my mind after a second.

'…Stan! I don't want to see anyone else, bring Stan here!' It was Morse Code.

I ran up to the door pushing everyone—including Mr. Macky—out of my way and pressed my body against the door.

"Kyle? Is that you? Are you in there?" I yelled to him.

'Stan? Is that you?' Came a response.

"Dude, what are you doing!" I yelled.

Some of the other kids around were starting to be weirded out, probably because I was taking to the knocking of a door.

'…I need to talk to you alone.'

"Then open the door!" I yelled, some of the kids were leaving now.

'Come inside.'

"Fine!" I yelled, the next thing I heard was the click of the lock and the door opened slightly for Kyle to stick his head out and pull me inside.

The second I was in the bathroom, he slammed the door behind me and locked it again, then walked past me over to the sink where he bent over it gripping the edges shaking.

"Kyle, what's wrong?" I asked, I already knew, I wanted to see if he would tell me, I walked over to him and put a hand on his back. "You can tell me."

He whipped around looking me straight in the eye, his were red and puffy, no doubt he spent his time bent over the sink like a coolie crying.

'EVERYTHING, ALRIGHT!' He mouthed, then fell back over the sink and started crying again.

"Dude, look," I said, pulling him up from the sink to look me in the eye, god he looked like shit, "fuck Cartman, fuck all those other guys, fuck the whole god damn school, they deserve it."

He sniffled a bit then used his sleeve to wipe his face, 'You mean?' He mouthed.

"I mean," I stared down at his hands that were laying motionless by his sides, my habit was acting up, "they can go screw themselves, who cares what they say?" He looked away a second so I just grabbed those damn hands and squeezed making him instantly look back at me. "They can think what they want to think, they can say what they want to say, it's hurts, but you shouldn't let it get to you." When I was done with that he just stared down at our hands intertwined. "The point is, Kyle," he glanced up at me, "from now on, it's just you and me and nobody else. The rest don't mean a thing."

I think that helped, he sniffled some more, then smiled and proceeded to clean out his eyes in the sink, which in my mind I was against him doing because hell knows what went down that sink, but I didn't want to upset him more. The whole mess was little bit my fault at least. I needed to cheer him up somehow; he had it really rough ever since he woke up, and even before that.

He was reaching for a paper towel when I grabbed his arm and ran, "Come on, dude!" I yelled heading for the bathroom door, unlocking it and escaping into the hallway with Kyle dragging behind me.

Mr. Macky tried to stop us after we came out, but I just turned back still running and waved showing it was just Kyle so he walked off.

'What are we doing?' Kyle signed to me.

"You'll see, something that will really cheer you up." I called back to him as we burst through the lunch room doors where everyone still was and made our way to the middle table.

I jumped onto one of it's benches then helped up Kyle. We looked out among the crowd of kids, everyone was there. I cupped my hands around my mouth to amplify my voice, and my plan went underway.

"EXCUSE ME, CAN I HAVE EVERYONE'S ATTENTION?" I yelled, everyone froze and looked up at Kyle and I, I cleared my throat. "…I lost the game."

Suddenly, the whole grade went into an uproar of people yelling stuff like "I LOST THE GAME!" or "YOU SON OF A BITCH STAN, I LOST!" Yes, my plan worked perfectly.

I looked over to Kyle afterwards; he was trying to contain himself. Trying not to laugh. Everyone fell quiet again and listened as loud tromps from the hallway quickly approached the lunchroom along with the sounds of barking dogs. A few seconds and Kenny and Marjorine burst through the cafeteria doors slamming them behind them and pushing themselves up against it to keep it closed as a bunch of dogs jumped and scratched at the door from the other side. They were panting and dirty and looked like they had been running for a while.

"Holy fuck, when did they add guard dogs!" Kenny yelled once the dogs gave up and ran off, he and Marjorine sank to the floor exhausted. "We are seriously never going to get him out of there, I'm sorry Butters."

"I-it's alright, Kenny." He said pulling on his ponytails.

Kyle then grabbed my wrist and brought us over to them, 'Kenny, what happened?' He asked using his Morse Code.

"Nothing to worry your pretty little head about, Kyle." He said standing and brushed himself off, then helped Butters to his feet.

'Pretty?'

"Yup." We all walked back over to our table and sat. "According to Stan at least." I punched him in the arm. "Ow! Careful, I got a bruise there!"

"Shut up Kenny! I don't think that!" I yelled then threw myself down on the table, my hair falling all around my face.

"Denial." I heard him whisper to Butters.

'Stan.' Kyle tapped on the table and poked me a few times in the back. 'The bell just rang.'

We then proceeded to literature class with Butters; Kenny was going the other way to PE so we said our good-byes outside the classroom.

"Oh gosh," Butters said shaking when we were outside the teacher's door, "today we were supposed to turn in our response to the first chapter, weren't we?"

"Well, it _is_ Friday." I said agitatedly, Kenny's comment was still pissing me off.

'Stan!' Kyle mouthed pushing me. 'What's with the attitude?'

"Who are you, my mother?" I asked pushing past them to get inside the classroom, I was freezing my balls off out there in the quad, it had started snowing. Mother fucking October.

Kyle and Butters walked in after me, but Butters just went to the back of the room to sit in his seat. Kyle came after me.

'Stan! Dude what the **fuck**!' He mouthed running up to me with his arms extended for emphasis. 'Why are you so pissed off?'

I froze for a second just watching him stare at me demanding an explanation, I took in a deep breath, "I DON'T FUCKING KNOW, ALRIGHT!" I yelled, then sat down in my seat not looking at him. "I don't know."

'Dude, it's alright…' He mouthed sitting in his usually seat to the right of me. 'You okay?' He asked putting a hand on my back.

"I guess." I said quietly, then looked up to see him looking down at me trying to understand.

His gaze never left my eyes, he was my best friend, he just wanted to know I was going to be all right. I could tell he wasn't nearly satisfied with my answer, but he wasn't going to push me for a better one. We just kept staring, since when did he wear eyeliner? How long did it take me to notice? It looked pretty good. He probably stole it from Shelley's room or something, not that I cared.

"Kyle…" I said breaking the silence. "It's nothing, I'm better now."

Kyle just pulled me closer to him, nearly making me fall out of my chair; he hugged me in front of our whole literature class. It was unexpected, but I decided to hug back, just cuz, you know, I thought he might cry if I didn't. Behind us some kids were talking loudly about it, they quieted down when Kyle let go of me, he still stared at me though.

'Dude, what ever got you to doesn't matter an—' He mouthed, but was cut off when some kid in the back took off their shoe and threw it at us, hitting him in the side of the head.

"ALRIGHT!" I yelled standing up grabbing the shoe and holding it above my head. "WHO THE HELL THREW THIS FUCKING SHOE!"

Kyle was leaning over his desk coughing and holding the side of his head he had been hit on.

"Stanley, sit down." Mrs. Davis said coming in the room, everyone still up immediately took their seats, I was reluctant to do the same but eventually did so I could ask Kyle if he was alright.

"Kyle, are you okay?" I asked pulling his hand away from the side of his face he had been hit, there was a kind of bump I could feel when I touched the area, making him cringe, there was also a large cut hidden by his hair with some blood slowly leaking down, but it didn't look too serious. "Damn it, when I find who did this." I let go of his head and he winced again.

'Just let it go dude, this isn't the first time it's happened.' He simply signed, since when has that been the case?

Sure, some people liked to poke fun at him because Cartman and a few other guys suspected him of being gay, but I'd never seen anything where he'd actually been hurt. It must have been within the time the rumor was going around and I hadn't heard it.

The whole rest of the school day he was pretty quiet and distant again, he asked a few times that day from all different teachers to go to the bathroom, then told me not to come with—that was the few times he signed anything—and then spent around fifteen minutes in there alone. It probably had something to do with the shoe; I did find the culprit. As we were walking out the door to our next class a kid in front of us was only wearing one, and the one he did have on was an exact replica of ours. It probably had something else to do with the few times in literature when the kids behind him decided to poke some more fun. The point was, he didn't talk to me, he didn't look at me—except a few out-of-the-corner glances I caught him stealing—and he wouldn't listen to me when I continuously asked him what was the matter.

He didn't do anything in art, and that was his favorite class, just because it didn't have homework and since he was a pretty good artist he got all A's on his assignments. We were leaving the art room, we were going to skip again, second time that week. We were walking on the sidewalk going home, passing the field. He was walking really slowly so I had to grab his wrist to get him to keep up. I was looking around pretty bored, there were hardly any cars going down this direction of the road, I looked over at the field to my right, I saw some of the guys playing football. Not an actual game, none of them were actually on the team, just Craig and Token and some of the other guys.

Suddenly, some of them stood up and looked over at us, "Marsh!" Craig called. "We need another player, you game?"

I looked back at Kyle; he was looked down at the sidewalk some. I nudged his shoulder and he looked up at me, gave me the first smile he had in hours. I knew him better than that. I knew he was faking just so I wouldn't feel bad to abandon him to play with the guys. If he was willing to, I might as well though, so I climbed over the hip-height fence with him following close behind me.

I ran out on the field where the teams were already set up on the line, somehow they had managed to clear all the snow from the whole field. They probably skipped the last few classes to do that. I was supposed to be playing for Craig's team, guard on the end right next to Tweek, who I'm guessing really didn't want to be playing. I looked over at the other team who had the ball; Damien was quarterback and Pip was his center. I cocked my head slightly, how was Pip going to play in his clothes? He wears the same thing everyday; that old metrosexual outfit, just bigger now. You know the one with the zebra striped hat thing? I'm pretty sure wearing that no one would want to be tackled or be playing football.

I looked over at some of the other guys on his team, Jimmy, Token, Clyde, and the guy I was guarding: Cartman. I looked around for Wendy; she was leaning up against the school all the way down the field. On my team? Kenny, Marjorine, Timmy—why was he playing?—Craig, Tweek, then me. I leaned forward getting Kenny and Butters' attentions and waved to them; only Butters waved back, Kenny smiled and stuck out his tongue. Yeah, that was _really_ grownup.

"Marsh! Get your head in the game!" Craig yelled, but he was to slow.

By the time he said it and I looked up Damien yelled, "Hike!"

"What?" I asked standing up, but Cartman running past me knocked me down. "FUCK CARTMAN! WHAT THE HELL!"

"Sorry pansy, didn't mean to push you." He said snickering, then ran off when Token got the ball.

"ACK!—T-that's a fowl!" Tweek yelled after him running over to me to help me up.

He just turned around still running to flip us off, that got Craig so angry he changed courses from chasing Token to Cartman, then tackled him to the ground.

"Craig! Get offa me!" He yelled holding his nose. "I don't even have the ball!"

Craig proceeded to punch him in the face once before backing off, "Don't mess with Stan, and don't flip off Tweek, that's my job." He ordered in his still nasally voice.

I took the opportunity to look over at Kyle, he was laughing. Actually laughing this time, not like before when they first asked me to play. This was real. I got his attention yelling his name a single time then waved, he waved back.

"Alright, that's a point for us." Token yelled throwing the ball to Kenny who almost caught him.

Kenny ran back to us with it, "Alright, everyone set up, Stan, you're quarterback now." He said going over to the line. "I'm center."

"K." I walked over behind him.

Kyle began walking onto the field and made his way over to us signing to me, 'Can I play this time?' He asked.

I looked at the guys on my team; they were all looking at me ready to tell them the game plan.

"Uh, guys, Kyle wants to play this round." I said repeating what Kyle had signed.

They all looked at one another for a minute, then Craig spoke up, "Alright, Timmy, sit out for a minute."

'Stan, can I be quarterback?' Kyle asked.

"Sure dude." I said and he got in my spot. "Kenny, go play wide receiver, I want to be center." I said getting in his spot.

"Whatever." He walked over and stood next to Marjorine.

"So, Kyle, what's the plan?" Butters asked.

He just shook his head and turned to me, 'Just trust me.' He said using his whistle so Kenny would understand him too.

Kyle walked over to me and used his hands to gesture to the ball asking for it, "Uh, sure?" I said throwing it to him, he looked it over a minute, then crossed the line and started passing the other team's mates.

"What is he doing?" Craig asked.

"Just trust him." I said repeating what he told me.

The other team just stepped aside letting him pass and he continued walking down the field looking over the ball to like he was trying to see if there was something wrong with it.

"What on earth is going on?" I heard Clyde ask.

"I don't know, hey Marsh!" Token called after me. "What's your boyfriend doing?"

"I don't know." I said simply.

"SO YOU ADMIT IT!" Cartman screamed. "I KNEW YOU WERE FAGS!"

"Leave them alone, fat tits." Kenny said glaring over at him.

"You should talk, gaywad!" He yelled back.

We all turned our attention back to Kyle who had by then walked halfway down their end of the field, he stopped and looked down at the faded twenty-five yard line in front of him then looked up back at us. We all waited for him to do something, I really hoped he'd just come back to us so we get on with playing, but at the same I didn't want him to play because I was afraid if he got the ball the other team would tackle him. He just turned away from us looking down the field in the direction of the school where Wendy was leaned up against the wall watching us; then he made a break for it.

It took all of us a minute to realize what he was doing, suddenly Jimmy started yelling, "H-h-he's going for a… for a… for… for a…"

"He's trying to get a touchdown!" Clyde finished pointed at Kyle.

With that everyone took off running after him, but it was too late, even Token, their fastest runner couldn't catch him because he had already walked down half of their field. He threw the ball down after crossing into the endzone and everyone slowed down to a walk. My team ran up to him giving him highfives and cheering, the other team was not impressed.

"That doesn't count!" Damien yelled. "Kyle didn't call hike."

Kyle, Kenny, and I all glanced at one another.

"Yes he did." I said. "Before I handed him the ball he said it using Morse code. You guys forgot he couldn't talk?" I lied.

"We didn't forget, we just couldn't understand him, very much." Jimmy said but still came around to congratulate him. "T-that was a brilliant i-idea, Kyle."

Kyle smiled.

Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Wendy stand up from the wall and pick up her giant army duffel bag. She started walking over to us. Cartman wasn't as fast as the other guys, that was for sure, all that weight holding him down. He finally reached our circle, but he didn't stop running. He just plowed through Timmy who had made his way over as well and Pip pushing some of the other guys down too. I backed up a few steps away from Kyle who was directly in his path, so did Jimmy who was still next to him. Instead of knocking him over again to get to Wendy, he full-body tackled Kyle to the ground yelling profanities.

"YOU SUN OF A BIAYTCH JEW FUCK!" He screamed, Kyle tried pushing him off, but he was too heavy. "YOU'RE A DIRTY LYING RAT PIECE OF SHIT!"

Wendy ran up next to him pushing me back and unzipped the bag to pull out a brick and handed it to him. I fell in the mud when Wendy pushed me aside, getting some in my eyes, I quickly tried to get up and stop her but I slipped and fell again.

I rubbed the mud from my eyes and looked over at Kyle who was still pinned down by Cartman, he looked scared like he was going to die, why wasn't anyone else doing anything.

"DIE JEW FAGGOT!" Cartman screamed holding the brick above his head, he threw it down against the side of Kyle's head continuously, but he couldn't get a very good opening because Kyle was waving his arms wildly around his head trying to protect himself.

Kyle managed to grab the brick away from him and tried hitting him back, but it fell from his grasp and sank in the mud next to them. Wendy just handed Cartman another.

"HOLY SHIT! CARTMAN, STOP!" I screamed trying to get up again, but I fell. Again.

Everyone was just standing there watching. No one even bothered to try to help me up, they were to scared or didn't care or didn't want Cartman to pound them with a brick either. These were the same kids who outcast Kyle when we were little kids, the same people who laughed at him when the rumor went around, the kids who didn't think he would wake up when he was in a coma, and now they were the kids who watched as he was beaten to death by Cartman, his bitch, and a bag full of bricks. It all made sense now, these people, their actions, this whole god damn world. Everyone's too afraid to stand up against someone or be the odd man out. If a sacrifice has to be made, they'd sooner kill their mom than be the outsider, and if by helping make someone else one made you less of one, they'd do it. Blood thirsty, selfish cannibals. It didn't matter whether it was Kyle, or me, or Kenny, or even Cartman. We were nothing to them, all Kyle had was me, and sooner or later, all I'll have will be Kyle.

Everyone was silent, even Cartman, he dropped his brick and it splashed in the puddle next to them as Kyle tried to scream, he didn't. It sounded kind of like a scream, but it had no tone, just air. I found my footing in the mud and ran at Cartman who was still on top of Kyle and pushed him off, tackling him to the ground myself.

"YOU FAT, RETARDED SON OF A C***!" I screamed punching him a few times.

Wendy ran up behind me and hit me in the back of the head with another one of her bricks making me fall over half conscious on the ground.

"Don't you touch him, you fucking half-dead hippie!" She screamed helping Cartman to his feet.

I held my head looking at everyone staring down at me now, the world was spinning and there was two of everyone. I shook my head returning back to normal and looked over at Kyle laying on the ground with his eyes wide open breathing short, sharp breaths of air. There was blood running down his face and tears streaming out of his eyes. I got up slowly; I was still dizzy and kneeled down next to him.

"Kyle? Kyle! Are you all right, can you hear me?" I yelled shaking him, pulling him up so he could lean on me.

He nodded slowly twice then coughed; it sounded like he was choking.

"He broke my nose!" Cartman yelled once Wendy had helped him up. "You suns a bitchas!" He yelled pointing at us. "You just a goddamn fucking fag, Kahl, yur a jew, and yur a homo! Yu will burn in hell!" He yelled running up to us and spit on him, then Wendy did the same and they ran off with their bag of bricks.

"Kyle! Kyle!" I yelled, he just lay up against me looking at the ground.

"Maybe he's right." I heard someone say.

Looking up I saw it was Clyde.

"What the hell are you talking about!" I screamed. "We're not gay, and we're not going to hell!"

Token looked over at us, "You might not me, but Kyle is."

"He's a faggot! Doomed to an eternity of hell fire!" Damien screamed up at the sky. "He's a freak without a voice and cannot defend himself from his accusations! There for it is truth! He will burn in hell with my father!"

Pip looked over at Damien, and Damien being his only friend, he had to go along with him, "Yes, uh, death to the unholy, I guess."

They walked up and spit on him too, Token and Clyde just walked away without a word. Timmy and Jimmy had left while Cartman had Kyle pinned to the ground so that just left Craig, Tweek, Kenny, Butters, Kyle, and I, but Craig and Tweek left after them. I looked over at Kenny and Butters, they were gay, and they were out and everyone picked on Kyle who no one even knew the sexuality of.

"Kenny…" I said softly.

"No, Stan." He looked away taking Butters hand. "I'm sorry." He said quietly and they walked away.

They left us there alone on the field. I got to my feet and helped up Kyle, he had trouble finding his balance so I took him over to a bench against the fence and sat him down, I kneeled in front of him.

The blood that was dripping down his face earlier had stopped and I wiped off the guy's spit with my sleeve. He didn't look at me; he looked to the side, goddamn why could we have just kept walking when Craig asked me to play? Why couldn't have when Kyle flashed me the fake smile I would have decided what was best for him? Why didn't I just leave when I saw Cartman and Wendy where there? Shoulda coulda woulda.

I didn't do any of that stuff, no I had to somehow make everything right again, somehow tell Kyle things would all be okay when obviously they wouldn't.

"Kyle, please, look at me." I said, he did.

I stopped for a moment, he looked so broken. I know this kind of thing had probably happened so many times before, but I was seeing him, what happens to him. It's crazy. They probably did worse things to him I didn't know about, the kids at our school, but this time I had witnessed it and was almost helpless to help the helpless one.

"I'm so sorry, this is all my fault." I said trying to look at him straight in the eyes. "I shouldn't have let this happen, I'm sorry I couldn't stop him before, it's my fault. Don't be sad, be angry at me, you deserve to be." He just shook his head, so I continued. "Don't listen to them, they don't know anything. They're just so gullible and stupid they hear one thing and think it's true and they never let it go. Don't think about them," I said looking down at my hands, "they're nothing. Who gives a damn what they think, and who gives a damn what they say." I looked back up at him, I think he was going to cry again. "I will never let them do anything to you ever again, and I will never stoop to their level." I said grabbing his shoulders.

Tears started running down his face again and he started screaming out words I couldn't understand or read because he was trying to yell them. A couple of words, just repeating them over and over again, I could only make out an L ever once and a while. In my brain it kind of went like: '_L_L_L_L_!"

"Dude, dude!" I yelled getting a hold of him and pulled him tightly around me. "It's alright, it's alright." I let him go. "Talk slower, I can't understand what you're saying."

He just shook his head and hugged me again.

We were at my house later that evening, my parents were out so we cleaned up his face and were watching a netflix we got in the mail, Tarzan. I was really glad when I opened the envelope and saw it was that movie, perfect. I popped it in immediately so we could start watching, an animated movie about love and expectance. We were really enjoying it, the only bad time was in the middle of that song "You'll be in My Heart", when Kyle started crying again, so I had to comfort him while the song was still playing.

"Why can't they understand the way we feel? They just don't trust, what they can't explain. I know we're different but, deep inside us, we're not that different at all. And you'll be in my heart, yes you'll be in my heart."

We were just finishing up the movie when my cellphone went off, it was Kenny.

I answered reluctantly, "What do you want, asswipe?" I asked angrily.

"Stan, I'm really sorry about earlier, but it's an emergency!"

He sounded like he wasn't lying, so I asked, "Dude, what's up?"

There was a pause, "Butters, Bradley, and I are stuck in a ditch, the car is out of gas, they're coming for us, we need to get out of here quick! You need to help us get out, the door is stuck from the outside, we need help!" He yelled into the phone.

"Who's Bradley?" I asked.

"That doesn't matter! We need help; we're going to die! HOLY FUCK, THE HOOD JUST CAUGHT ON FIRE!"

"Alright! Alright! Calm down, we'll be their shortly, where are you?" I asked.

"Next to the forest, near the parking lot of the old Wal-Mart! Don't bring your car, hurry!"

He hung up on my a second later, Kyle was looking over at me wondering who had called, "Kyle, I'll be right back, you just wait here, don't open the door to anyone but me or my parents or Kenny, Butters, or some kid named Bradley, alright? I'll be right back." I said running to our coat closet by the door and put on my jacket.

'Okay.' He signed.

I found them right where they said they'd be trapped in Kenny's car, I ran over to them, the car was still burning, they were banging on the windows. I was yelling at them from the other side of the glass but they couldn't hear me, so I rip out my cellphone and called Kenny, he immediately picked up.

"Open the roof! Your car's a convertible!" I yelled into the phone.

"We tried that, it's stuck too!" He yelled back looking at me through the window.

I groaned taking out my pocket knife and stabbed it through the cloth roof of his car and started cutting down it slowly. Marjorine was the first one out, then a blonde kid who was really freaking out, then last was Kenny. When we were safe, they all started running for the woods, so I followed.

"Where are we going?" I yelled at them.

"Your house!" Kenny called from the front of the group. "They'll check Butter's and my houses first, we just need to spend the night!"

I groaned again, "Fine, just don't make a mess!" I yelled, we were pretty much in the middle of the woods now, once we got to the end there was a street we had to cross and we were at my house.

We stopped a moment randomly in the middle for a breather, I was looking around in the almost dark, the moon was the only light besides Kenny's and my cellphones we had out to light up our faces for a bit. I looked over at what I thought was a clearing and I saw something shiny. I stood up from my tree stump and started walking towards it, Kenny, Butters, and Bradley were about to start running for my house again, now they were looking at me wondering what was up.

"Stan," Kenny said, "we're going to keep going, alright?"

"Yeah, go ahead, I just want to see something real quick." I said, they ran off leaving me alone.

I walk toward the shiny object reflecting the moon's glow, it was a shovel leaning up against a tree. More specifically, my stolen shovel. What the hell was it doing way out here? I took another step closer to try and grab it, but my foot slipped and I nearly fell in a hole in the ground I hadn't noticed before. I stood up brushing the dirt from me and looked it over. It was a really big hole—that's it, the burglar is digging for something here, but what's valuable in the soil of South Park? Unless, they were trying to bury something. But what would need to be put in a hole like that? It was really long, probably around six or seven feet and three or four feet wide. From what I could tell, it was also around four feet deep. What kind of object that would be buried that needed those kinds of measurements? A refrigerator?

I walked around it for a minute, then looked back over at the shovel, and I realized, this wasn't meant to bury an object, this was meant to bury a **person.**

**

* * *

**Alright, let's play the guessing game! Hmmm... what did Kyle try to tell Stan after he saved Kyle's life? It's about two or three words long, he just keeps repeating it, and it has an L pretty close to the beginning. Anyone want to guess?**  
**


	11. Suspicious Actions

When I got home I found Kenny and Co. had already made themselves comfortable on my couch, they were all playing with Kyle who was sitting in the middle.

"I knew it was true!" Kenny yelled at him while I walked in. "Alright, Butters, your turn, ask anyone."

He turned over to Bradley who was on the end, I put away my jacket in the closet and made my way over to where they were but they didn't notice me yet.

"Bradley, truth or dare?" He asked.

"Hey guys." I spoke up emerging from the shadow I had been hiding in.

"Shit Marsh!" Kenny yelled jumping in his seat. "Give us a warning next time you do that!"

"Sorry." I walked over and sat down between him and Kyle. "What happened while I was out?" I asked to Kyle.

'Nothing really, I just sat here and these guys showed up so I let them in.' He signed. 'I was thinking we could watch another movie.'

I looked over at all the blondes, they were waiting for me to say something, "You guys should get to bed, my parents will be home soon. You can all sleep in the basement."

"The basement!" Kenny yelled throwing up his arms. "But it's cold, and damp, and dark." He reached over Kyle and I and grabbed Butters' hands. "Think about the children!"

I rolled my eyes, "Then why don't you just go home? Your house is so big, I'm sure there's some place you can hide. Like a wardrobe or something, that's it, go hide in Narnia!" I said sarcastically folding my arms. "Just don't bitch to me about how cold it is there this time of year."

Kenny just groaned and got up to help up the others, "Come on guys, let's get down to the basement where we'll be safe from Stan's piss-poor attitude." With that they headed for the stairs. "By the way," Kenny turned around while the others went down, "we'll make sure to be _extra_ loud for your parents." He winked then followed them down.

"Fuck Kenny, don't have a fucking orgy when my parents get home!" I yelled after him, he just slammed the door on me.

I looked over at Kyle; he still had his eyes on the door.

"Dude, what do you want to do now?" I asked getting his attention.

'Sleep.'

The next Monday I woke up to the sound of his hallway's shower turn on. Saturday morning I woke up on the couch to see Kenny, Butters, and Bradley sneaking out the front door in the middle of the night, I hadn't heard from them since. Sunday was nothing special, just going to lessons. Now I was sitting up in his bed rubbing the sleep from my eyes, what time was it? The clock said 5:17 AM. Kyle wasn't in the room so I guessed he was up taking the shower.

I got up slowly and sauntered over to the door wearing my boxers and a white undershirt and leaned on the bathroom door lazily.

"Kyle, you in there?" I asked loudly so he could hear me.

'Yeah, morning.' He tapped out on the door.

I scratched at the locked door and moaned, "Uhg… you naked yet, ginger pubes?"

'You're not coming in.'

"How's your head?" I asked remembering about how on Saturday and Sunday he kept complaining about his horrible headache.

'Better, now let me take my shower.'

"Fine." I said walking back to his room to get dressed.

I went to my bag and pulled out a pair of black skinny jeans; weird I thought I had an extra pair in there, oh well. I put those on, then slipped on a black T, then went back to the bathroom door.

"Open up, I have to get ready." I yelled.

'Let me finish!' He tapped out, so I turned around leaning my back up against the door and sank to the floor waiting for him to get done with his stupid shower.

Soon enough, the water stopped and he opened the door making me fall backwards against his legs that were—to my displeasure—clothed. With my jeans. I looked up at him and he leaned down smiling down at me upside down with his hands on his hips. He was also wearing… one of my T's?

'Come on in.' He mouthed going back over to the sink and picked up a thing of eyeliner looking at himself in the mirror.

"Want some help?" I asked getting up and walked over standing behind him.

He looked at me through the reflection of the mirror and just continued to apply the makeup to his eyes by himself. Once he was done he handed me a brush from the sink counter and pulled up two foldout chairs we had left leaning against the bathroom wall. He sat in one with his back facing me, I think he wanted me to brush his jewfro some. I didn't blame him; it was kind of lopsided because he always slept facing me so it was squished on one side. I sat down behind him and stabbed the hair once; the brush automatically was stuck. A few painful yanks later and it was free and I proceeded to slowly make progress. Eventually it was lopsided no more, but I wanted to work on it a little longer, you know, so it looked at least somewhat presentable.

Kyle was pretty content the whole time despite the rare occasion I hit a knot and took out a chuck of his jewfro. I think if he still had his voice he would have started humming or something, but… so I started humming for him. "Girl Put Your Records On"; just because of that one line "Got to love that Afro hair do".

I looked up from Kyle's hair for a minute to see Ike standing the doorway. He was just leaning up against the side with his thumbs in his pant's pockets looking over at us blankly. I stopped brushing Kyle's hair a moment and sat up straighter waiting to see what he wanted, he just smiled for half a second then got up from leaning against the doorframe and wandered off.

Kyle and I were walking to school, he had gotten all quiet again after breakfast, so we walked in silence, he was listening to his The Killers albums, I was just looking around.

When we got to the school, we just got to Bio and sat quietly until the bell, Kenny and Butters and their friend weren't there so we didn't say a word to anyone. Actually, we didn't say a word to anyone up until lunch. At least the kids in all those classes left Kyle alone for some reason.

When we got to lunch, Kyle pulled me away from Craig's table before I had a chance to sit down. He didn't want to sit with them, I didn't blame him, I didn't really want to either, so we locked ourselves in the bathroom and ate there alone.

In Literature class Kyle just sat there like a stone looking straight ahead, the kids in that class left him alone too. Art class he just worked on his project listening to more The Killers.

We were walking out the front doors of school together once the day was done, someone stopped us.

"Stan!" Craig yelled coming up behind us, Kyle took one look at him and ran out the door into the streets.

I was about to take off after him, but Craig gripped my arm holding me back, I had no choice but look back up at him with a glare and ask, "What do you want?"

"I need to talk to you about what happened." He said with his usual straight face.

I didn't really have a choice, so I let him drag me off to the locker rooms where some kids on the soccer team were finishing up getting dress and left to go to the field. This was the only place we could stay because they were having practice so we sat on one of the benches as the rest of the players left.

"I'm concerned for Kyle." Craig started off saying, I couldn't believe him.

"Oh really? And you weren't when you watched Cartman try to beat him to death with one of his freaky bricks?" I snarled sarcastically. "You don't care, you never did! You thought he would wake up, no one thought he would! I was the only one! You're all a bunch of fucking sellouts!"

Craig sighed, "Friday, you're still pissed off, aren't you?"

I turned back to him, was he high or something, "You can't be serious, Kyle could have died, I think I might still be a little pissy! You just all stood there doing nothing! You outcast him for thinking he was gay! You should crawl back under your fucking rock and die, Craig!" I found myself screaming and trying to hit him, but he just grabbed my arms and held me back.

"I couldn't do anything different!" I yelled back at me. "I didn't want to, I have to for my own safety!"

"BULLSHIT!" I screamed nailing with a punch in the jaw.

"Listen to me!" He yelled grabbing my fists as I swung them trying to hit him again, I sat there panting glaring at him.

His face was still blank, but he looked sorry. He looked scared and like he needed me to know it somehow wasn't his fault.

"Cartman, when we were nine, he didn't like that guy, Scott Tenorman so he ground his parents up into chilly and made him eat it! Now he's sixteen and ten times stronger and more sadistic than before, and he's two strong with Wendy by his side, Kyle was lucky. You're brave for trying to help him," He said letting my hands go and looked down at the ground, was he really that scared, it kind of felt nice hearing him compliment me though, "but you're also stupid." All right, now I'm pissed off again. "I'm sure someone would have stepped in, but Damien was there too, and he's the only one who really appreciates Cartman's sadism and hates gays, and he's also son of the devil with all the powers of the underworld. Get on his bad side and you're as good as dead." That made some sense. "We don't hate him, we don't think the same things they do about Kyle, we just can't do anything about it. If I were you, I'd back out. Every man for themselves."

I stood up from the bench looking down at Craig, the bad ass who no one messed with, he was telling me he was too afraid to help Kyle and I should just give up on him. What the hell happened to us? South Park has changed and I don't like it.

"I'm leaving," I said heading for the door and opened it, but before I left I looked back at him, "stay away from Kyle, and stay away from me."

I left the school running for Kyle's house, but when I got there he wasn't home. I ran all the way to my house, he wasn't there either. My parents weren't home, and neither were his so I just picked up our phone book and dialed Kenny's home phone number.

"Stan?" Kenny picked up.

Woe, that's weird, "Hey, how did you know it was me?"

"I'm physic dude," He said, "that, and I have caller ID."

"Alright, hey, have you seen Kyle?" I asked.

"Yeah, actually I have, I was walking down the street and he ran up to me saying, 'Tell Stan I'm totally head over heels for him', then he just ran off."

"I'm serious Kenny!" I yelled into the phone.

"Me too! …Alright, maybe not so much, no, I haven't seen him, why?"

I paused a minute, "…I kind of lost him…"

"Fuck dude, you lost Kyle?" He yelled into the phone making me pull it away from my ear quickly.

"I'm trying to find him, is Butters there?"

"Yeah, you want to talk to him?"

"No," I answered plainly, "just ask him if he's seen anything."

There was a pause, "Nope, he hasn't seen him either, you're screwed."

I groaned, "Yeah, thanks for that, call me if you see him, alright? I'm going to be calling around some, if I don't find him I'm going to go out looking, then just call my cell, alright?"

"Sure."

I hung up, not even giving a goodbye, and dialed Cartman's number, because, there's a pretty good chance he might have killed him or something.

"What?" He answered angrily and out of breath.

"You haven't seen Kyle have you?" I asked with a blank stare into no where.

"Do I look like a jew-keeper to you?"

"You look like you might need to go on Biggest Loser, but I need to know where he is, he ran off." I said smiling in my mind.

"Probably saw an oven." He said grunting. "I don't really care, I'm a little busy with Wendy here." He said grunting again.

"Say no more," I said annoyed then hung up.

The moment I did, I ran back to the Broflovski's house to see if Kyle had come home yet, he hadn't. I was in the kitchen with their phone against my ear listening to the ringing of Jimmy's phone before he picked up. He didn't have a chance to before I ended the call hearing the front door open and close. I ran out of the kitchen to see Kyle kicking off his shoes by the door.

"Kyle!" I said with my arms extended to him, he just strode past me to the bathroom so he could… wash his hands? "Kyle, where were you?" I asked when he came out.

He just walked over to me with a blank stare and hugged me quickly before sitting down on the couch and turned on the TV. I plopped down next to him to watch him flip channels, then he finally stopped on Ion.

"You didn't answer my question." I said looking over at him.

'I was helping Tweek clean up a mess he made dropping his thermos again.' He signed. 'He got coffee everywhere and I ran into him, I had to help him. He's so short, I didn't see him.'

I laughed a little; "He's not _that_ short, you're only like two inches taller than him."

He looked back over to me leaning against the back of the couch relaxing and gave a crooked smile, 'That means only one inch shorter than you…'

"Yeah, yeah." I said ruffling his hair.

'Hey!' He yelled pushing me away, then started laughing himself.

I liked it when he mute laughed, or when he smiled, when he was his old self. At school he was like an empty shell and didn't do anything. At least for some reason it made the kids stop bugging him for a bit, that or Cartman forgot to pay them or something.

Tuesday was nothing special, we went to school, Kyle didn't do a thing there, and after we just went to lessons. I think Louis finally decided to give up on me, because he was never home when we were there anymore, maybe he decided to try out his taller friend instead of me for a while. That would sure be a relief.

The thing I didn't like about Tuesday was that even after lessons Kyle didn't talk to me, I just drove us home and he locked himself in his room with the diary. He just seemed to slip further and further away from me, I didn't like it, something was up. Also, ever since Cartman and Friday he started taking his little park fieldtrips more frequently, before it was just every once and a while, now he went every day. When it came time Tuesday he said he was going; I went walking too, in the opposite direction.

I was walking listing to my iPod on shuffle, not really paying attention to which way I went, and I just happened to run into Tweek like Kyle had done the day before.

"Oh god, Tweek, I'm sorry." I said picking up his thermos and the lid and handed both to him. "Twice in two days, right?"

"T-thank you…" He said taking them. "What are you—GAH!—talking about?"

I was looking at my shirt, luckily it was black so a coffee stain wouldn't be left, but I looked up when he asked that, "You ran into Kyle yesterday after school."

He just stood there shaking, "I only saw K-Kyle at lunch, I swear!" Then ran off bumping past me, what the hell was Kyle doing after school then?

I shook off the thought and hurried home after that, it didn't really matter. When I got home Kyle was still out, he returned a while later, I was doing homework so he joined me, then after locked himself in the bathroom until dinner.

Wednesday, I had had enough. The whole morning and night before he didn't talk to me at all, now it was lunch and I was prepared to do something about it.

"So, Red's having the party this Friday, everyone's invited." Kenny said to the group, I wasn't all too interested. "You're going, right Stan?" He asked me.

I was too busy resting my chin lazily on my hand staring blankly at Kyle to notice, Kyle was in a mirror position looking back at me and didn't hear a word either.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." I said not caring.

"That's nice, now if you fags were done with your little eye sex with each other…" Cartman said slapping down a paper on the table in front of me. "You're going to need to sign this."

I sat up, still not all that interested, "What the hell is it?"

Everyone looked around at each other; "It's the contract the whole grade came up with." Token answered. "Stating, you can only come if you swear to get intoxicated beyond your content."

I raised an eyebrow, "So, you're saying I can only come if I get drunk?"

"It's only fair," Kenny spoke up, "you're the only one who ever ends up sober so no one can catch you doing anything stupid!"

I rolled my eyes, "That's the point, dumbass. No," I pushed the contract away; "I'm not going if I'm getting drunk."

Kyle tugged on my arm, 'Please? I want to go.' He Morsed me, right; Kyle's never been to a whole grade kegger.

I groaned pulling out a pen from my backpack, "You're lucky I like you and these parties." I said signing my name.

Kenny immediately snatched up the contract and rolled it up sticking it in a poster cylinder thing and sealed it. They all looked like they had it in for me, like they planned doing something devious while I was intoxicated. God I hate them.

"Obviously Kyle wants to take advantage of _someone_ while they're drunk!" Kenny said loudly to himself with his eyes closed; unfortunately it didn't go unnoticed.

Cartman started laughing loudly and slung an arm around Wendy's neck, "God, what a bunch of fags, I swear, I'm glad I didn't kill him, this is too funny!"

Kyle looked like he was going to pop a blood vessel, so I took care of Cartman for him punching him in the cheek making him slam his face on the table accidentally. It was funny as hell; he went to holding his nose again as it started dripping blood again.

"Fuck, Marsh!" He yelled getting up from the table and ran off with Wendy trailing behind him.

I thought I had made a breakthrough with Kyle, apparently not because the rest of the day he went back to sulking and in art just listened to The Killers some more.

I caught up with him after class, he was leaving quickly trying to get to the car, I pulled him around and looked him in the eyes just trying to reach him.

"Kyle, what's wrong?" I asked bluntly. "Tell me why you're so quiet now a days? Is it Cartman?"

He smiled a little bit just looking at me, 'Don't worry about it Stan, it helps fend off the annoying kids, alright? Sorry I worried you.' He signed.

"Don't bullshit me, Broflovski." I said narrowing my eyes. "You expect me to believe that? Tell me, I care, and I want to know. I'm just scared for you because you're important to me."

'You sit there in your heart ache, waiting for some beautiful boy to save you from your old ways, he doesn't look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman, like you imagined when you were young.' I thought I saw him mouth.

"What was that?" I asked, he just turned away with a small smile and headed for the door again.

Kyle had a funny way of working; he had a good way of hiding what was going on and what he was really feeling. That's what made me so worried, it seemed everyone was on their break from picking at the remains of him, but how long would it last? No matter how hard I tried to convince myself he'd be okay when I laid awake at night next to him, it would fade. The thing that got to me most was he always going to the park. Something was off. I wanted to know what he was up to, but I was a little afraid to find out, so I always decided against following him. Some times I'd watch him leave through one of the front windows, but that was it. He just crossed the street from my self and disappeared between the trees, which he had to cross to get to the park, that was the fastest rout. When we were at his house he always left walking down the sidewalk going east and returned going east coming up from the other end of the street.

"So, what do you do at the park?" I asked that day when he got home.

He looked over at me funny, 'I write poetry.' He finally said.

My eyebrows went up in surprise, "Really? In the diary? Can I read some?" I asked noticing it under his arm and made a grab for it.

'No.'

The next day of school everyone was talking about the party, I didn't see why it was that big a deal. Kyle was better; he was talking in Morse Code to Kenny some during Bio. It made me really happy, maybe things were finally going back to normal. The kids hadn't touched Kyle the whole week and Cartman had backed off a bit, maybe if we laid low a little bit longer everyone would forget the rumor completely. The only thing wrong was, I don't know, maybe Kyle was a little too under the radar. I mean, he was basically invisible in class and during lunch to everyone but me, but, that's also probably a good thing. I wanted Kyle to be included, he just seemed kind of depressed the past few days, I wanted him to be comfortable. Same reason I gave up smoking, even though I still hadn't taking off the patch, I swear I'm probably going to get skin cancer from it or something.

At least now Kyle and I talked when we were going to and from school, anything that felt like old times, but there was always that one lingering feel that felt like something wasn't quiet in place. No matter how many times I talked to Kyle about what was up or asked him if there was anything he wanted to talk about, it never gave out. It was still there, waiting just below the surface to make its appearance. I had a rough idea of what it looked like, but the surface was distorted and I couldn't exactly make it out, but no doubt it was there. I just needed to somehow unlock it.

That day after the lesson we were at Kyle's house, debating over what movie to watch and he announced he was going to the park, so I got the window and watched him walk down his driveway and turn left going down the road east. Once he was out of sight, I decided for some reason to go down to the park too, just meet him there or something, catch what he does there, so I set out as well.

I didn't want to go the same way in case he caught me, so I walked to my house then crossed into the forest taking that path. Being alone among the trees during the day wasn't nearly as bad as in the dark, so I was making good time.

About half way through, I remembered the past Friday night and the shovel. I recognized the area I was in to be pretty close to the hole I had found then too, so I went around looking for it instead of continuing on my way.

A while later I caught sight of the shiny shovel again and followed the flash of the sun's reflection off it until I was in the same clearing as before, the hole was still there. Still six or seven by three or four, but as I looked around at the whole area, I noticed something. Tilting my head and walking around a bit, I proved to myself, it had definitely gotten deeper. Probably even a whole **foot** deeper than before.

I forgot about Kyle then, I forgot about the park, and whatever he did when he was there, I just ran back to his house and waited for him to come home.

* * *

Ahem, the line Kyle mouthed before, "You sit there in your heart ache, waiting for some beautiful boy to save you from your old ways, he doesn't look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman, like you imagined when you were young" is part of a song by The Killers, When You Were Young. That's the only reason Kyle was listening to them this whole chapter.


	12. Party Animals

'You ready to go?' Kyle asked already by the door.

I really wasn't. I didn't feel like going to on of Red's stupid parties if it meant getting drunk out of my mind, no doubt my parents would find out once we came home and then there would be major consequences. It was the 15th, Friday, four more days and it would be my birthday, Kyle and I were done getting ready for the party, now he was waiting.

"Yeah, let's get this over with." I said grabbing my coat and opened the door for him.

We were going to my car, I really didn't want to drive home drunk, but if I didn't drive home then the guys who hang around the whole night would trash it in the morning. Anyway, I wasn't going to be driving drunk; I had found a loophole in their little contract that could allow me to stay sober. My loophole? Kyle.

'Dude, drive faster.' Kyle commanded.

"I'm not going to be arrested before the party, it's just a few blocks away, hold your horses, Jesus Christ." I said making a left turn.

Eventually, we pulled up across the street from Red's house, the lights were flashing and the outrageously loud music blaring from inside could be heard down the street. Kyle immediately jumped out of the car and ran up ahead of me across the street then waited for me to catch up. We had agreed beforehand that we couldn't let each other out of our sights for safety reasons. We walked up the driveway together to the door where some girl was leaning up against the side of the house with cup full of beer.

"Invitations?" She asked stopping us before we went in, Kyle and I looked at each other, Red never gave invitations, people just came. "Nah, I'm just fucking you, go on in." She said laughing then turned away to continue talking to the potted plant next to her.

I opened the door for Kyle and we stepped inside; The stereo speakers in the front room were blasting out "Holding out for a Hero" at full volume and about half the grade was already there. By midnight there would be twice that number.

Some kids from our math class were leaned up against the walls of the entryway making small talk, I'm guessing the only drunk ones yet where the kids who came by early. Going further into the mess of people, the more hot and stuffy the air became, I really hate the beginning of these parties. It takes a while before everyone starts throwing furniture, that's why you don't come early, if you do it's all awkward until the drunkest guy there starts the riot.

The first people Kyle and I really recognized were Cartman and Wendy sucking face at the bottom of the staircase. That had to be the one thing that was more utterly discussing than Cartman himself.

We didn't exactly know where to go, the living room was already crowded and all the furniture was occupied, if I went into the kitchen someone would defiantly remember the contract and hand me some alcohol. I wanted to at least be sober the first hour for Kyle; he just stood there extra close to me so people wouldn't bump into him as they all ran past us.

"Stan! Kyle! Over here!" A familiar voice called us from the living room.

We went over to see it was Kenny laid back on the couch looking like a pimp with Marjorine sitting on him and Bradley on his other side.

"Sup Kenny, Butters, Bradley." I said waving to them. "Kenny, what's on your agenda for tonight?"

He looked from Butters to Bradley then back to Kyle and I, "Well, I was thinking three some, but if you two want to join us…"

'We'll think about it.' Kyle answered, how could Kenny hear him over the music?

"Yeah," He said turning over to look Butters in the eyes, "I don't know, Bradley's kind of a prude, so he might chicken out, but I don't care, you're amazing."

I laughed, "Butters? Really?" Kyle hit me in the arm.

"Yeah." Kenny snapped glaring at me. "Knows all the moves in Backdoor Sluts 9."

Kyle and I looked at each other wide eyed, "Okay, Kenny, don't get too drunk then, you're really going to hate it in the morning, especially not remembering your night with Marjorine."

He stood up then putting his arms around Kyle's and my shoulders and turned us away guiding us into the kitchen, "Yeah, about getting drunk…" He said looking up at me. "Your contract? I don't think I see any bottles in your hands, Stan."

I groaned, "Yeah, about that." I pulled Kenny's arm off of my shoulder. "I can't, you see, I have to take care of Kyle, and he has to have his buzz, so I can't get drunk by law, your contract is now invalid." I folded my arms and grinned. "Plus, I have to drive us home and my mom has fits about me being drunk."

Kenny just shook his head smiling, "Stan, forget all your stupid rules, they don't apply, it was in the contract."

"I don't care, I'm not doing it." I said, then went to walk out of the kitchen even if it meant leaving Kyle there with the maniac.

"Oh, no, I think you do, you see," He turned me around and pointed out through the other archway out of the kitchen at the goth kids sitting in the family room, "if you fail to follow the rules of the contract and don't leave, then we, the guys and I, have the right to: strip you down, tie you to one of these kitchen chairs, cover your whole body with honey, wrap you up like a present, and give you over to Louis Petty. Also, as of now, you can't leave."

I just stared over at him with my jaw hanging open, he stood there smirking with his hands on his hips, Kyle was next to him looking at me scared too.

"I can't leave, I can't not get drunk, and I can't get somehow out of this without being raped by Louis? If I do get drunk he'll rape me anyway," I looked up at him again, "YOU ASSHOLES SET ME UP!"

Kenny just walked over and put a hand on my back for support, "Stan, Stan, Stan, we didn't set you up, we just want you to do something humiliating, and Louis agreed to help us."

"Sounds like a setup to me."

"You should have read the fine print, in fact," He walked back over to Kyle playing with his jacket collars, "you should have read the actual contract before you signed it."

"Kyle pressured me into signing it!" I yelled then glared over at Kyle, he just looked away nervously. "What the hell, Kyle!"

'I just wanted to go with you…' He signed then sighed a little, god I'm such a dick.

I sighed too and ran my hand across the table next to me for a second, "Fine, get me a beer, just Kyle," He looked up at me, Kenny ran off to find me one, "make sure Louis comes nowhere near me."

He just smiled giving me a "you think?" face.

Kyle and I continued to walk around a bit more, everyone cheered and high fived me whenever they saw I was holding an open beer bottle. Eventually we just sat down on the couch with Kenny and Bradley, Butters was on the coffee table giving us a dance.

It was at this time I initiated my plan B to not get drunk, in the middle in one of Butters strange erotic dances to "Take it Off" I excused myself to go find the bathroom where I dumped out my beer and filled it with water from the sink. Just to be sure I washed it out a few times before going back to them, none of them noticed a difference.

A while later, Craig and some of the other guys showed up, that's when the party heated up, people running around with their pants down, girls making out with other girls, some drinking games in the makes. Kenny was now pretty drunk, Kyle had wondered off a few minutes before and I hadn't seen him since, and I had heard from some people there were some guys in the basement doing heroin, but I didn't want to go down there and find out.

"Well Marsh, didn't actually think you had it in you." Token said as he and some other guys sat on the coffee table in front of us.

"You bet, asshole, either that or I get to f-fuck Louis up the ass, and I don't want all you dicks to have to see it." I said slurring a little trying to trick them into thinking I was already drunk.

"Dude, I think you shouldn't have anymore." Clyde said pointing to my beer. "I can finish that for you."

He made a grab for it; I pulled it away from him hissing and tried to bite his hand, "Get your own, ass licker!"

"This is priceless." Cartman laughed; how come he didn't break the coffee table?

Kenny fell off the couch then trying to grab his bag; he pulled out a whole bottle of Scorpion Tequila and opened it.

"It's blue." I said keeping up my act, blue it was.

"Dude," Craig just stared at it, "you'd better share."

I took the opportunity to entertain them; "Sharing is caring, man."

Kyle walked back over to us then, he stopped next to me and watched a moment then grabbed my arm making me stand, 'Dude, Stan, you alright? You didn't drink that much, how are so drunk?' He signed, obviously he hadn't drunk anything yet despite the half empty bottle in his left hand.

"Kenny's got Taquillluh." I said laughing a bit. "Kyle, you okay, where'd you go, we were getting bored…"

'I just went out for a breather.' He looked down rubbing his neck, my dad might not have taught me much, but he did tell me how to lie.

"You wanna five sommit wihhth Kenny?" I asked pointing back at the group with my thumb. "Damn prude… you okay?"

'Stop it, you're definitely drunk, I think we should leave.' He signed grabbing my arm again and started pulling me to the door.

I didn't want Kyle to miss out on the fun because I had to keep up my drunk act so we wouldn't get thrown out or get me fed to Louis, but I couldn't tell him, he'd tell Kenny. And, even if Kenny was drunk he could still strip me, tie me to a chair, cover me in honey, wrap me up like a present, and give me to Louis, or at lease push me out the door and slam it in my face. Luckily, Kyle didn't get to the door, Clyde escorted us over to the middle of the first floor in front of the stairs connecting the entryway, the living room, the family room, and the kitchen where a bunch of kids were already gathered in a circle around Kenny's bottle of Tequila. I was pretty sure they were doing some sacrificing ritual, but Clyde just sat us down with the group and went off back to his own seat.

"We all know how this works, right?" Cartman said speaking above everything else amazingly. "It's like normal Truth or Dare but anything goes and if you bail on a dare you have to take a shot, you can't bail on a truth, but if you successfully complete a dare everyone else has to take a shot."

I raised my hand; he picked on me, "What if we run out?"

Kenny just raised his bag full of more bottles and no one asked another question.

There were only about seven or eight of us in the circle, a few girls, mostly guys, Craig was first to start.

"Kenny, truth or dare?"

"Dare." He smiled deviously.

Craig got up and disappeared into the kitchen for a minute then came back with a bunch of grapes and plucked one off handing it to Cartman, "I dare you to eat that grape." He said simply, Kenny continued smiling. "But, you have to eat it off of Cartman's tongue.

"Sick, I'm not doing that, fag!" Cartman yelled.

"You have to, fat shit!" Craig screamed back.

Kenny just looked around and grabbed his Tequila, "Bail."

"You SUCK!" Craig yelled at him flipping him off, it then went on to Tweek who was next to him, but Tweek was having trouble choosing, so Craig whispered to him who to choose.

"Uh, B-Butters?" He stuttered.

"Yeah?" Marjorine looked up from Kenny's crotch. "Truth."

Craig pulled Tweek closer to him again to whisper something else, "Uh… you h-have to—AHK—no way!"

Craig just groaned and said it himself, "If your boyfriend were an animal and the only way he could become a human again was to fuck him, what animal would you prefer he be?"

Butters thought for a moment, "A kitten, because then Kenny could be my kitty forever, I'd change his litterbox and give him kitty treats, and I could pet him all I'd want!"

Everyone was silent, "I don't think he understood the meaning of the question." Clyde pointed out.

"Oh well, my turn." Kenny said grinning, then turned to me, holy crap I'm dead. "Stan—"

"Dare." I cut him off before he could give the rest of it.

He smiled even wider, "You have to close your eyes, then the rest of the circle picks someone to have to kiss you, you guess who it was, and if you guess right it's over, but if you guess wrong we have to pick a new person and so forth." I thought it was really going to be worse than that, but then again, I could end up kissing Cartman, or even everyone in the whole circle, but I didn't have a choice, if I bailed I'd have to drink a straight shot of Tequila, and one's enough to really buzz you.

"That's stupid, I can come up with one ten times worse than that!" Cartman bragged.

"We know you can, now shut up, I accept." I said closing my eyes and sealing my fate.

"And, they have to use tongue!" Kenny added falling backwards to the ground and just laid there, we thought he was dead until someone poked him and he sat up again.

It couldn't be too hard, could it? I just have to try to analyze by shape feel and smell. If they tasted like Tequila it was Kenny, that wasn't too bad.

The group started whispering, I still had my eyes closed, eventually they quieted down and someone did a countdown. Someone kissed me, chapped lips, dry, not to pleasant, their tongue went in my mouth and I didn't do the same back to them. They just kept it there still, they tasted like alcohol, couldn't be Kyle. HOLY FUCK I JUST REALIZED THERE WAS A CHANCE THEY COULD GET HIM TO KISS ME. There was some snickering from the group; I could distinctly hear Cartman among them so it couldn't be him thank god.

They pulled away after what was too long and eventually someone asked, "Who was it?"

I just guessed, "Jared Miller?" He was a boy I saw sitting with us, I opened my eyes, they were all looking at him.

He just snickered, "No."

I was about to ask who it was, but they had me close my eyes and shut up before I could.

"No, no you have to, _shhhh_, he'll hear you, okay, okay, get to it!" I heard Cartman whisper loudly.

The next pare of lips were softer, probably a girl's, they smelled like Coconut, they tasted like Coconut too.

"Time to guess." Cartman said once I opened my eyes.

"Wendy?" I guessed, just because I was getting tired of the game.

She instantly became pissed off, "I don't kiss like fucking Pip!" She yelled.

I looked over at him appalled, "Dude, Coconut chapstick?"

They all started laughing at him, if Damien we over with us instead of being used to heat the hot tub outside he would have set some people on fire. Kyle wasn't laughing, he was looking down at the ground wiping his mouth with the back of his hand shoving something in his pocket.

"Alright, next."

The next person was apathetic, no motivation at all, I had them figured out. They even broke the use tongue rule.

"Craig." I said simply the moment they pulled away, I opened my eyes, I was right.

"Dammit Craig!" Kenny yelled trying to punch him. "Kyle was next on the list!"

"I told you to put him in front of me!" He yelled back simply, soon they were in a fight and Kyle and I fled to the upstairs.

"Dumb shits." I whispered loud enough for Kyle to hear.

'You're really drunk dude, we should go.' Kyle signed pulling my shirt collar so I wouldn't fall down the stairs backwards, he looked pretty worried, couldn't be all because I was _drunk_, could it?

Now was good a time as any, I had to ask him what was up, why was he always acting so weird lately? He was about to start going down the stairs so I grabbed his shoulders and spun him around and pulled him back up to the top with me.

"Kyle, what's up? Why've you been acting different and not talking and stuff… you wanted to talk to me a while ago about… something."

He sighed, not looking at me, he was going to tell me when a scream came from behind a door near us, and then one of the girls came running out pushing past us for the stairs. We stood there watching her dash down into the front room then pull off her shirt. Kyle then turned back to me and I did the same looking at him.

'Well, if I tell you then you probably won't even remember…' He signed, wow, was I really _that_ good at acting?

I put a hand on his back, "You can tell me aannnahthing." I said pausing, then remembered earlier. "Hey who was the firss to kiss me?"

He laughed a little, it made me feel better, 'Jimmy.' He was smiling up at me because I was balanced on top of a stepstool left out in the hallway, then he looked away, I could have sworn I saw him blush, but the lights were too low. 'Well, what I wanted to tell you…' He looked back up at me, I had on the drunkest straight face possible on. '…Nevermind, just forget it.' He finished turning away holding himself.

"Kyle?" I asked accidentally using my own voice, I jumped down and ran over to him and hugged him, if any of the guys asked I could tell them I was drunk. "Dude, you can tell me."

He sniffled once, 'Well, I, uh… I kind of li—I mean, I…' He sighed. 'I'm gay, alright?' He signed pushing me away then went over to sit on the stepstool.

After stumbling back a few inches when he pushed me, I just stood there and watched him sit there silently with his head in his hands looking at the ground. I knew him, I knew if I left him there he would cry, I wasn't going to, I didn't really care if he was or not. I walked over without stumbling and slid down squatting next to him putting my hand back on his shoulder.

"That's fine dude, I don't really care about anyone's sexuality, it's alright." I said trying to find his face behind his hands. "Anything else you wanted to get off your chest now?"

He removed one hand from his face and used it to dig into one of his pockets pulling out a thing of chapstick and handed it to me, Coconut. God dammit.

'I lent it to Pip, dude, there's nothing wrong with using it, it tastes really good.' He assured me pointing at the thing.

"Can I taste some?" I asked bluntly.

He looked over at me with a face saying, "You did not just ask that", then he looked around a bit and shrugged, 'I guess, if you want to…'

"Good." I said uncapping the chapstick and put it on myself.

Something told me when I looked up to see his eyebrows raised in surprise that he didn't think I meant using his chapstick, whatever, he was drunk. I think.

Anyway, I stood then, throwing his chapstick back to him and pulled him to his feet and started running down the stairs yelling, "HEY EVERYONE! KYLE'S GAY!"

A few people cheered; among them were Kenny and some of the other guys, Kyle immediately came up behind me and covered my mouth with his hand.

'We should go, now.' He signed.

I just licked his hand getting him to release me, "No, I wanna hook you up with someone." I yelled running off into the crowd of people dancing and talking and rarely: fucking.

I found Kenny and Marjorine alone on the couch together, apparently Bradley chose to split, because he was nowhere in sight.

"Kenny, we need to get Kyle a boyfriend!" I yelled pulling him off of Butters. "He's totally for shiz gay, we have to hook him up…"

Kenny just laughed, "I like your shirt, go make love to Kyle or something."

I shook him for a long minute, "Dude, you drank the whole bottle of Tequila, didn't you? You're drunk out of your mind!"

"Hold the phone." He said prying himself from my grip, there was a long pause before he said anything again. "Where's Bradley? Did you fuck him? That's my job, you suns of a bitch!" He yelled over the music trying to hit me.

"No, I didn't, he ran off! Kenny, you have to go home, you're way too drunk!" I yelled grabbing his wrist and Butters' and pulled them away from the living room back to where Kyle was; the bottom of the stairs. "Kyle! Kyle! We have to take them home, they're really drunk."

'Okay,' He signed taking Butters and we walked them out the door into the cold, non-stuffy air.

"Butters," I said as we walked down the driveway, "did you guys drive here?"

"We going to have a five some yet?" Kenny asked loudly. "Wait, hold the phone." There was another pause. "Where's Bradley? Where'd he go? I was going to fuck him, that… prude!"

"Shut up Kenny!" I yelled shaking him. "Did you drive here or not?"

He just squinted at me stumbling down the pavement, "Why? We doing it in the car? You and Kyle can have the backseats, you fuck monkeys. Yeah, that's it."

Kyle turned his head away from me a second, 'Stan, we can't take him home, he's too drunk. What should we do?' He asked using the whistle; his hands were full trying to help Butters from falling.

"Do?" Kenny asked. "Stan, does it hurt the whole nine inches?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I said looking up trying not to hit him. "Maybe you should just be quiet, we're almost to the car."

I opened the door for Kenny and Butters who crawled in the back of the truck, then I opened the passenger seat for Kyle, he didn't go in. He stood there on the sidewalk with his arms folded glaring at me like I was an idiot.

'I'm driving, Stan, you're way too drunk.' He signed.

I sighed, we weren't in the party anymore so I didn't have to keep up my act anymore, I pulled him close to me to whisper in his ear; "I was faking, it's water." Then I poured out my beer bottle on the sidewalk proving it then threw it into the house's yard we parked in front of. "Now get in the passenger seat, I'm the one with a license."

He got in then, I walked around the front of the car and got behind the wheel and we drove back to my house, and I wasn't pulled over! Thanks to the fact I wasn't drunk. Kyle and I sat in silence the whole time while Kenny and Butters made out in the backseat before Kenny threw up. That made me immediately stop the car throwing him forward against the back of my chair and I turned around yelling at him that when he was sober he was going to have to clean my whole car.

He just went back to kissing Butters, I swear it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. Five minutes later I took that back because then Kenny threw up in Butters mouth, then I had to open the window so Butters would vomit in my car to. I was seriously about to kill them, but we made it to my house before they could puke again.

We got them up to the front door, I was pulling out my key, maybe we could sneak them in without my parent's noticing. The last clock I had seen had to be around an hour ago, and that one said around one thirty or something in the morning. I was about to stick it in the lock when my mom opened the door. She was mad as hell, but when she saw how drunk Kenny and Butters were and how _not drunk_ Kyle and I were she just hurried us inside and sat us all down on the couch.

"Boys, what happened, where were you, why are Kenny and his friend so drunk?" She asked sitting on our coffee table in front of us.

I looked over at Kyle, he couldn't really help me in this situation, so I decided to make up my own story, "Well, Kenny and Butters—"

"Butters?" She yelled looking over at him. "Butters Stotch? I… well…"

"Mom," I said bringing her attention back to me, "they were at a party, they called us and we had to pick them up, they're really drunk. Whole bottle of Tequila."

She stood up frantically, "Thank you boys, I need to call the Stotch's, Kyle, can you and my son get some hot water and mustard?"

Kyle looked over at me and shrugged, I got up then helped him, then went to the kitchen. He went to the refrigerator to get the mustard; I went to the sink for the hot water.

"How much water do we need?" I asked my mom looking at our cabinet full of glasses and mugs.

She just ran over holding the phone and pulled down a big glass bowl for me and set it under the sink and started running the hot water, "Stanley, please, I'm on the phone—Hello? Yes, Mrs. Stotch? Yes, this is Sharon, yes, I have seen Butters, he's at my house." She paused. "No, he and his friend Kenny got really drunk, my son and Sheila's son, Kyle, brought him back here."

Kyle came over to me handing me the extra large bucket of mustard my dad bought back when there was still a Wal-Mart here, he really stocked up on everything, we could probably survive through two apocalypses on all our shit in the basement.

'Now what do we do?' Kyle asked me, as if on cue, my mom ran over and dumped the whole bucket of mustard in the warm water and got out a big wooden spoon for us to mix it with.

We were stirring our concoction when my dad came downstairs to see what was up. He came into the kitchen still looking over at Kenny and Marjorine who had started making out again.

"Uh, Stanley," He said standing in the archway between the kitchen and the front room where they were, "why are your two little friends Kenny and Butters drunk kissing on our couch?"

"They drunk a whole bottle of Tequila, we went to pick them up, they threw up in my car, and they're really horny, that's why." I said like this kind of thing happened ever other weekend, then picked up out bowl of mustard soup from the sink and stirred it more in my arms. "Hey, what am I supposed to do with this now?"

My mom hung up the phone then and took the bowl from me going back out to Kenny and Butters grabbing a cup on her way out of the kitchen. We followed her waiting to see what she was going to do, she poured some of the yellow shit into the cup and handed it to Kenny who drank it immediately.

"It tastes like hotdogs!" He yelled sticking out his tongue after swallowing.

My mom just gave him some more, then he got up from our sofa to throw up yellow on himself, my dad walked him into our downstairs bathroom where he continued to puke in our toilet. My mom then did the same for Butters and soon he was in there too.

"The Stotch's said they'd be right over, so when they get here let them in, I'm going to call the McCormick's now." My mom said going to the kitchen to wash off her hands then grabbed the phone again.

My dad came out of the bathroom a minute later looking into the kitchen at Mom then came back over to Kyle and I, we had sat back down on the couch by now.

"Hey, uh, Tequila, right?" My dad asked, I nodded. "You, uh, you don't think they might have any more, would they?"

"Dad, you're not getting drunk drinking Kenny's Tequila."

He looked disappointed, "Well then… you two didn't drink, did you?" He asked us, we shook our heads. "You sure? You're not just saying that, and you're not really drunk out of your minds?" We shook our heads again; this was getting old and annoying. "You didn't…" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Hang around a bit with them drunk and had sex, did you?"

"NO DAD, SHUT UP!" I yelled, goddamn, not this again.

"I'm just asking!" He insisted. "…You did use condoms, didn't you?"

"GET OUT OF HERE!" I yelled getting up and pushed him out of the room into the kitchen, when I turned back I saw Kyle was trying not to laugh, the moment he saw I noticed that he sat up straighter completely silent.

'Your dad…' He sighed, then the doorbell rang, I walked over to get it.

"He's an ass." I finished reaching for the knob.

'Maybe so, but he's also pretty entertaining.'

"True." I admitted opening the door to a very angry Mr. Stotch and a crying Mrs. Stotch. "I presume you're here to collect Butters?" I asked.

Mrs. Stotch just nodded so I stepped aside letting them in.

"Kyle, you woke up I see." Mr. Stotch said noticing him sitting on the couch, Kyle nodded. "That's good."

I went over to the bathroom door opening it and pulled both of them out. I left Kenny by the door while I pushed Butters over to his parents.

"Butters, you're in a lot of trouble young man!" His father yelled waving a finger. "What are you wearing? A dress? Are you gay Butters!"

I didn't know his parents didn't know, I assumed they did, I guess he changed after he left the house everyday.

"Hell yeah, dad, Kenny!" He said, still drunk, Kenny came over. "Bye, I'll see you in class tomorrow."

I face-palmed; tomorrow was Sunday. They kissed a minute, Butters' parents were totally horrified, their faces: priceless.

"Bang you next time, sexy." Kenny called as Butters' parents dragged him out the door, when they were gone Kenny turned back to us. "What's up guys? Hey, have you seen Bradley? Where is he?"

He was looking around the room a bit, Kyle had gotten up then and stood next to me, we both had our arms folded scowling at him. A few minutes later and Kenny's mom came and got him, I'm really glad his parents got a divorce, otherwise his dad would have probably beat him right in front of us and my parents.

After that, it was just Kyle and I; my parents went upstairs to bed, but not before my dad gave us the "no sex in this living room tonight" talk. He was really fixed on the idea of Kyle and I together.

We ended up falling asleep on the couch in front of the TV turned on to the Netflix channel on the Roku.

* * *

Next chapter: the secrets of the hole—revealed!


	13. Deadly Attempts

The rest of the weekend was just Kyle and I together. I convinced him not to got to the park either days, so besides the lesson on Sunday it was just us doing stuff together. In signing class Mrs. Vilas finally decided we could move on from letters to whole word symbols, so we learned numbers and how to say hello and the days of the week and stuff like that. All the time Kyle never could get enough of it, he was always on his iPad looking up how to do other words we hadn't learned then taught them to me.

I never brought up the whole "drunken confession" thing, Kyle did say that because I was drunk I wouldn't remember it, so I was guessing he didn't really want me to. We just carried on with normal conversation like it never happened, but that wasn't true, he didn't talk as much; it was obvious that it was bothering him, but he never mentioned it. I tried not to think about him being gay, I really didn't care, sure it did kind of make me feel the slightest bit awkward when we had to sleep in the same bed or he had to take a shower and I had to be _right there_, but it didn't _bother_ me. We were still best friends; nothing could ever change that. I can't say I didn't see this coming, that would make me naïve, I always had a vague idea he was. So, nothing had really changed, I just gave it a little too much thought, though whenever the words gay, fag, homo, or Adam Lambert came up in a conversation it would immediately turn cold.

To tell you the truth, I had actually forgotten it by Sunday. It didn't cross my mind a whole day, until we got back to school that is.

We had walked to school Monday morning, my car was still full of vomit and we couldn't stand the smell and my dad had to drive his to get to work. So we were walking down the sidewalk, it was snowing lightly, and made our way to the high school.

It seemed like everyone was at school, even Kenny and Marjorine who both looked like they hadn't gotten any sleep that weekend, and they weren't too happy. Walking up to the main building no one really noticed Kyle or I, but the second we walked through into the main quad everyone around us grew strangely quiet.

We just hurried over to outside the science class door, the snow had stopped falling by now, but there was a good few inches on the ground all around the quad. Kyle and I dropped our bags by the door and we were about to start heading off to just walk around and talk, when someone called out to us.

"Hey, fags!" We turned around, it was Cartman and standing next to him was Wendy.

Wendy had in her hands covered with purple mittens was a snowball about the size of my fist, she held it up and chucked it at us hitting Kyle in the side of his face. They turned to each other high fiving and laughing.

"The hell, Cartman!" I yelled while Kyle tried wiping the melting snow from his face with his glove. "Just leave us alone!"

He turned back to us and stopped snickering. I just turned around pulling Kyle with me in an attempt to just walk away from them. I stopped when another snowball was thrown, this time hitting the back of Kyle's head. I assumed, because it _was_ a snowball, that we'd just keep walking, but Kyle passed out and fell forward landing face first into the snow.

"Kyle!" I yelled bending over to turn him over.

When I had, he just looked up at the sky dizzily then rubbed the back of his head. The cut's he had gotten a week ago had reopened the side of his head he had been hit, what the hell was going on? I reached over to the little lump in the snow that was the snow they had thrown at him, there was a large rock hidden inside it.

"Bull's eye!" Cartman yelled before he and Wendy ran off.

A few kids standing around who had witnessed the whole thing just walked off too or turned back to their friends trying not to look at us. I just focussed on Kyle, I helped him up, he was kind of wobbly holding the back of his head, I had to pull him along behind me to the nurses office.

She got him cleaned up, that made us late for Bio, I didn't really care, neither did Kyle. We walked in; I handed Mrs. Knapp our note from the office and took our seats. Some people behind us where whispering about why Kyle was bandaged around his head and had an icepack in his hand. Some of the other kids were whispering about the party. I'm guessing someone there had to have stayed sober just for me, they all had it in for me, so if I did do anything insane everyone would know.

Damn them. Damn them all.

I leaned over to Kyle in the middle of class; he had just been sitting there quietly the whole time listening to the teacher, or maybe it was the other students, I didn't know. All I knew was he just sat there quietly looking straight ahead at the board.

'Hey Kyle.' I signed over to him. 'How's your head? Does it still hurt?'

He didn't look at me, he just clenched his eyes closed tightly and balled his fists.

I placed a hand on his shoulder immediately making him tense up, 'Dude, what is it? You can tell me, you can tell me anything.'

He stood from his seat quickly throwing my hand off his shoulder and stared down at me in disgust. Everyone was staring at us; even Mrs. Knapp had turned around from the board to see what was going on.

'Don't touch me!' Kyle mouthed.

"Kyle, sit back down." Mrs. Knapp instructed pointed to his seat with her dry-erase marker.

He just shook his head pounding both his fists against his head violently then made a break for the door.

"Kyle!" I yelled standing up; I didn't run after him.

"Kyle, come back here! Sit down this instant!" Mrs. Knapp yelled after him before he flung the door open and slammed it behind him.

What the hell did I do? I just looked over at Mrs. Knapp, she was staring at the door, then went around reaching for the phone hanging on her wall and call what I thought was the office.

"Yes, this is Karen Knapp, one of my students, Kyle Broflovski, just ran out of the class unexcused." She paused a moment. "Yes the one that had recently woken up from a coma, I know." There was another pause, she looked over at me and motioned for me to sit back down, I wouldn't. "No, not because my class is boring, he… it's Biology. No, something set him off, he just stormed out," I couldn't take this, I ran over to the same door and opened it to let myself out to go find him, "yeah, now my other student is leaving. No, I have perfectly good control over my class!"

I looked left and right outside the door down the hallway trying to find which way he went, it had started snowing heavier, it was really dark now. I found his fresh footprints in the snow leading away to the left; I followed them up to the door to the boy's bathroom that was—big surprise—locked. I pressed my head against the door trying to hear anything; it was silent. I gave up pulling away, then I smelled something… smoke? I knew he had tried burning the school before, but that was fourth grade. Maybe he was trying to commit… oh fuck!

I banged my fists wildly on the door, "KYLE! OPEN THIS DOOR! PLEASE, WE CAN TALK THIS OUT!"

There was no response; I pulled out my wallet from my back pocket quickly, reaching in for what I was looking for. I found it a second later, my plastic gift card to Barns & Noble and slid it inside the crack between the door and unlocked the door, swinging it wide open and ran inside. Kyle was leaning over the sink fiddling with his lighter trying to light… a joint? What the FUCK?

He dropped both into the sink accidentally when he heard me barge in.

'Fuck dude, maybe a warning next time!' He mouthed. 'Get out!'

"No!" I screamed back slamming the door behind me and ran over to him grabbing the small ziplock bag of weed from his pocket and held them up to his face. "What the hell are you doing!"

He took in a deep breath scowling at me; he looked like he was about to swipe it right out of my hand and start screaming. He was about to try yelling something, then he just broke down crying and ran into me squeezing the life out of me, making me drop the bag spilling weed everywhere. I just stood there, my arm still raised, looking up at the wall behind him with my mouth open as he cried into my shoulder wrapping tighter around me still. I looked over at him, he was shaking slightly letting it out, I just curled my arms around him too.

"Kyle, what's wrong?" I asked out of there being… really nothing else to say.

He pulled away from me for a minute, looking just below my eyes, looking straight through me. He was so hollow. He had his hands cupped around my face a second later; he was pulling away from me.

"Kyle…?" I asked, he just slipped from my grasp and left me breathless as he walked slowly and silently past me out the door back into the cold, snow-covered, dark world outside.

I lost him again, this time in a different sense though.

I stood there in the bathroom alone like a stone a few minutes more, then left off to my next class when the bell rang, but not before grabbing the bag, lighter, and joint. The stuff that spilled I just scattered around with my foot, no one would notice.

The rest of the day during classes I didn't talk to Kyle, he didn't talk to me, we just sat next to each other silently, he didn't do anything. After school he didn't say anything as we drove to the Petty's house, he didn't say anything when we got there, and he didn't say anything when we were driving home.

I dumped out his backpack when he was at the park, I didn't find anymore weed or joints, so I was pretty sure it was just that once.

The next day was the exact same beside him running out of the class drawing all the unwanted attention to himself. The other kids proceeded to whisper and point and sometimes yell, but nothing worked on him.

He stayed at the park for an extra hour that day.

Wednesday, my seventeenth birthday, I woke up to find he had already gotten up and left me in my bedroom alone. My mom had made pancakes, potato pancakes so Kyle could eat them too; Kyle didn't touch them. I was starting to think he had forgotten my birthday, he didn't say a thing as we walked to school again, he wandered off a while later at school with his backpack, not bothering to drop it off by science before class. He was just going to the bathroom, I was supposed to wait there for him, but after fifteen minutes I went ahead and made my way down the hall turning down the corner to go find him, the second I turned that corner I ran right back around it again. Wendy had him pinned to the bathroom door with a pocketknife while Cartman raided his bag. Eventually he finished, throwing the bag down on the ground and kicked it twice making something break, I heard the crack. Wendy released him and he stood there silently as they walked away hand in hand. When they were gone he bent over to get his bag then returned to me. I didn't mention it.

It was after school he acknowledged my birthday, we were in the front of the school sitting on a bench together, everyone else had gone home. We had been sitting there a few minutes in silence when he suddenly started talking to me for the first time that day.

'Stan, I'm sorry I didn't do this earlier, but happy birthday.' He said giving me a fake smile, then he reached into his backpack and searched around for something.

I saw him tense up a minute and his hand stopped rummaging, obviously he had found what he was looking for. He pulled out a little ball of wrapping paper; it was oddly shaped and there was a small tare on one side. He gasped a little rolling it around in his hands then pulled it open.

I think it was supposed to be my birthday present from him, he looked down at his open palm and looked like he was going to cry. I think it was supposed to be one of those little glass animals, they were really cute and collectible I think, cost a lot too. It was lying there in his hands shattered into a million little pieces. He picked up a tiny piece with his other hand… I think he was shaking again.

I had to do something; I pulled the piece from him and put it back in the pile grabbing it out of his other hand, when it was safely inside my fist I hugged him.

"It's okay, thank you." I said, it seemed like we did this everyday.

I can't remember a time in our lives he was ever this unhappy before. Ever since the rumor he just wasn't the same. He wasn't carefree or joyful anymore, he was always serious and mysterious and distant. Maybe it will always be this way, he'll be seconds from breaking and I'll have to step in a save him. I don't think he'll be able to stand a life like that. Every day he just grows more distant, eventually I won't be close enough or able to help him. Why couldn't things just go back to the way they were? When things were so much simpler? Kyle and I were okay, Kenny wasn't partying or drinking or any other shit and cared again, and Cartman wasn't with Wendy and they didn't have it in for Kyle. Why the hell had fate made it end this way? How is it that God chose this to be our story?

Kyle didn't cry this time, he didn't do anything. He didn't hug me back, he didn't walk away. I let him go, then pull us both up off the bench and walked him home. When we got there, I started a movie, we sat on the couch watching in silence, he didn't watch, Kyle just looked down at his hands the whole time reading his old texts he had gotten on his phone.

The next day we went to school, Kyle was silent again, the kids behind us weren't. Everyone was talking about him, the rumor, the coma, the party… They were heartless. They said horrible things, purposely loud enough for him to hear. At one point in the middle of class we were reading, they were talking, I jumped out of my seat and started screaming at them.

"Stanley, sit down!" Mrs. Davis yelled at me while I was still yelling at them.

I was screaming something about how none of them could just leave Kyle the fuck alone, eventually Kyle had to get up and pull me aside to get me to stop.

'Stan, calm down, the hell's gotten into you?' He asked, Mrs. Davis sent us out into the hall, so we were talking alone.

"Nothing! I'd just think you might want _someone_ to stand up for you!"

He just stomped around outside frustrated, then came back to me, 'I don't care, it's just words, alright? That's it! They don't hurt, I can handle it!'

I opened my mouth to yell something back, then I realized, he didn't know I knew about the other times. He thought the only thing I'd ever seen was Cartman on the football field. He didn't want me to know about all the other times, that's why he wasn't talk to me, that's why he was so distant all the time. He didn't want me to worry about him. _That_ failed.

"I just want them to know they can't push you around." I said finally.

He just sighed and slumped down on a bench near Literature class, 'Yeah, thanks,' something told me he was sarcastic, 'you know what?' He asked turning to me. 'What does it matter to you?'

"What are you talking about?" I asked walking over to him but I didn't sit.

'Why do you have to care so much?' He mouthed standing up gesturing to me. 'Why does it matter what they say about me? What's it to you?'

He turned away a second later and sat back down with his back to me, "Dude." Was all I could say. "I care about you." I sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "You know that, right? You're important to me, that's why."

He looked over at me a second, Kyle took in a breath about to say something, then looked around a bit and turned around again then got up and walked away.

He left me on the bench, even after I assured him he meant everything to me. Something had changed in Kyle; he was different. He wasn't himself, he wasn't there anymore, I had to find a way to fix him because… well… if I didn't, then who would? I had to be the one to do it, and I had to do it fast, something seriously wasn't right. He was slipping away.

Friday started out like it normally did; Kyle was the same as the days before, I had to deal with it. Every time I asked him what was wrong he'd say "Nothing, don't worry about it" or "I'm fine, nothing's wrong" or he wouldn't say anything at all.

School was the same, he was quiet, the kids poked fun, I sat there worrying about him. I was walking to the cafeteria alone, Kyle had to stay back a minute to talk to the teacher about something and he told me to go on ahead so there I was. I went ahead and sat down with Craig and Kenny, Cartman and Wendy had yet to make their appearance so I was automatically in a better mood. I pulled out my lunch, the guys were all talking about something, I wasn't really paying attention.

"Are you serious? How did the teachers not notice it if it were that big?" Kenny asked.

"He has deep pockets or something, I don't really know, all I know is he said something about using it during lunch." Craig replied taking a large chunk out of his sandwich.

That's when Token spoke up, "And how do you know this, Craig? You happened to see it but the teachers didn't?"

"Cartman showed it to me before school. I just hope for his sake Cartman was bluffing about using it."

"And you just let him carry that thing onto campus?"

I was now slightly interested, but I didn't say anything.

"Wait a minute," Kenny said looking around then straight at me, "Stan, where's Kyle?"

"The teacher made him wait behind to talk to him or something, I'm guessing he's still there or walking here, why?" I said not looking away from the sandwich in my hands.

"Oh fuck," Craig said, "and Cartman hasn't shown up yet," He turned to me, "Stan, you'd better go find Kyle."

"Dude, he's with the teacher." I assured, I was getting a little annoyed now.

"How long ago was it when you last saw him?" Kenny asked grabbing my shirt.

I pushed him off, "Ten minutes ago tops, would you all just cut it the hell out? I'm not in the mood."

They all looked at each other, "Ten minutes?" Clyde asked.

"Tops!" I reminded them yelling.

They all just went back to whatever it was they were doing before, the whole conversation had been dropped until Clyde spoke up again, "Then he's already dead."

"The fuck, Clyde!" I yelled. "What the hell are you all talking about?"

They all looked at each other again, "Dude, Cartman's seriously going to kill him." Craig eventually said.

"WHAT!" I screamed jumping up from the table and bolted out of the cafeteria.

I went running down each hallways until I heard what had to have Cartman yelling, "You want it, don't you! Are you sick of it all yet? Ready to move on? This is what you want, isn't it?"

I snuck over and peaked around the corner at them, Cartman was squatting down in front of Kyle with a big-ass pistol against Kyle's chest over his heart and Wendy was standing over them leaning on he side against the wall. How the hell did I date her for so long and never realize how insane she was? I looked back over at Kyle, he didn't look afraid, he was glaring at Cartman.

'Just do it, fat ass, get over yourself! Just kill me!' I saw him mouth.

Cartman laughed looking up at Wendy, she smiled evilly, "You know, the only thing that could make this better would be if Stan were here to see me pull the trigger."

I could see from where I was Kyle close his eyes tight and turn his head to the side waiting for Cartman to get it over with, I also saw Cartman's grip around the gun grow tighter. I had to stop this, this was insane! Cartman was about to kill my best friend, and I was just going to witness! I jumped out from behind the corner and dashed towards them, that made Cartman loosen his grip on the gun and turned around to see what was going making him pull it away from Kyle's chest making him open his eyes to see what was going on. The second he saw it was me I froze.

Kyle looked at me scared out of his life, he was shaking again now, remember what I had theorized earlier? About Kyle not wanting me to be worried about him so he tried covering up all the things all the other guys did to him? My theory had been officially changed. He was afraid—horrified—and all I had done was caught Cartman in the act of trying to ride the earth of him. He wasn't distant because he didn't want me to worry; I was already worried, he pushed me away because he was ashamed of me finding out what they did to him. He was afraid of what I'd think when I found out because of what everyone else thought when they found out about the other things.

Oh fuck; and I just found out.

He immediately got to his feet pushing Cartman aside and ran. He ran away from the school to who knows where, I didn't chase after him. All I did was stand there frozen calling his name, but Kyle didn't come back, and that was the last time I saw him.

I was about to run after him, but someone else came along, it was Bebe. She had seen the whole thing too; she was walking over to them.

"Wendy!" She yelled, oh, she was pissed off.

"Hu?" Wendy asked turning around to see her, for a second, or maybe it was half a second, she actually sounded like her old self pre-Cartman, but it didn't last. "What do you want, skank?"

Bebe walked right up to her and grabbed her by the arm pulling her away from us, "Wendy, we need to talk!"

A minute later Cartman and I were still just frozen there, then the bell rang and he ran over to pick up his gun he dropped when Kyle had ran off and we both went on to our next classes.

I skipped art class and immediately ran home to Kyle's house to see if he was there, he wasn't. I whipped out my phone to call him and I found his phone on the kitchen table where he'd left it that morning. I grabbed it, then ran right over to my house; he wasn't there either. I started calling everyone right after that. By that time school had let out, so I called Kenny, then Marjorine, then a few other kids, none of them had seen Kyle.

I was sitting on my couch flipping through my contacts for the next person to call, but I kept glancing over at Kyle's cellphone. He had been using it a lot lately, he couldn't call someone, and I never saw he texting anybody, so I guessed he was just always getting his messages. I went back to my phone, dialing Token's number and waited for him to pick up. While I was waiting, I decided to just look at a few of Kyle's messages. I'm not to sure he would mind, be he wasn't there at the moment.

"Stan?" Token said finally picking up.

"Hi, have you seen Kyle? It's an emergency!"

"Uh, no, I'm kind of busy though, some of the girls and I are having our study group at the park, and we have to cover next week's quiz—"

I cut him off the moment my brain processed the word 'park', "You're at the park? That's where Kyle goes everyday! Why didn't I think to go there first?" I asked myself. "Can you look around a bit and see if you can see him?" I asked.

"He's not here." He said simply. "We're sitting on top of the concrete structure thing, I can see the whole park he isn't here."

I was silent for a minute, "He isn't? B-but, he always goes there! Every single day!"

"Uh, Stan, the girls and I always come here for our study group everyday after school, three all the way until seven. We come here everyday, I've never seen Kyle here."

I almost dropped the phone that second, "You… what?"

"Look, I have to go, it look's like it's going to start raining soon, we're going to go to my house to finish up, I can't really talk right now." He said, in the background I could hear some people yelling they felt raindrops. "I'll tell you if I see Kyle, but I've never seen him at the park. Alright? Bye."

He hung up a second later. I sat on my couch so stilly you could hear the rain approaching from outside. Kyle never went to the park? I always felt there was something weird going on with that, but… if he didn't go there, what the hell was he doing all the times he disappeared? It made no sense, I called a few people more, but after getting no where with Jimmy and being yelled at by Damien I put down my phone and sat there a minute. Eventually I looked over at Kyle's phone and opened up his messages. I clicked on received, and about a hundred little messages he got in the past week popped up. Most were from Cartman, but quite a few were from some of the guys and a few people I didn't know.

It was all death threats and insane accusations about him. Even when they weren't doing anything to him, even when he was supposed to be having a good time without them _with me_ they were being bastard, and I hadn't the slightest idea it was going on. I had to find him, I had to take him home and do something, I had to make it all right because… hey, if I didn't, who else would?

I dropped his phone on the couch and got up to grab my jacket and umbrella; there was only one place left he could hide.

It didn't take long getting there; the forest was across the street from my house anyway. Before I crossed the street though, I looked down the street going west, that was the direction Kyle's house was in. I shook that out of my head and proceeded to find my way through the forest until I found what I was looking for. It was raining really hard and it was very dark, so I had some trouble finding my way back to the place, but sure enough, I found it. I ran over into the middle of the clearing and looked down into the hole.

There was Kyle, laying flat on his back with his whistle in his mouth, mud dripping down the sides of it slowly just starting to cover his arms, in a few hours if he was still lying there he would be buried alive. He had tears streaming down his face—that or it was the rain—and my stolen shovel in his left hand.

I dropped my umbrella and slid down into the hole grabbing Kyle's waist with both my hands and sat on top of him, "Kyle! Kyle!" I yelled, he opened his eyes and looked up at me.

He closed them tight a second later and turned his head away from me.

"Kyle, please, stop! We can talk about this!" I yelled grabbing his shoulder.

He spit out his whistle and looked up at me grabbing my arms with his hands, 'What the hell is wrong with me!' He mouthed. 'Why am I so horrible that everyone hates me!'

He wasn't looking down or to the side or through me this time, he was looking me straight in the eye, begging for answers.

"Kyle, you're not—"

'Tell me!' He mouthed shaking me.

"You're not horrible, alright! They're ignorant bastards who should be all damned to hell, now please, can we get you out of this ditch?" I yelled, now I was crying. "Please… we just need to talk… we can work something out… I promise."

He pushed himself so he was leaning up against the back wall of dirt in the hole; 'You don't get it, do you?' He signed making me look up at him after wiping my eyes with my sleeve. 'People made fun of me before the accident, I was beaten by Trent Boyette putting me in a coma for two and a half years, I woke up mute, no one thought I was going to live or cared, people gave me shit for that when I came back. Then they all made fun of me for being gay before I came out, then when I did to you, you went and told everybody! You were the only person I could trust, and you blurted it out to the world!'

I knew he wasn't upset because of that. Kyle could never be angry at me, there was something more.

"Kyle, please, I'm sorry… I… I need to know what's really going on." I persisted.

He looked down this time, 'You know me too well.' He mouthed, that wasn't it either; he suddenly started crying again. 'You're always there for me when I need you, you're always beside me no matter what… you're amazing and funny and everybody likes you.' He looked back up at me, his eyes were all puffy and red. 'With out you, I would probably be dead right now. I just feel… like…' He looked away a minute. 'You have so much purpose, always trying your best to help me, I HAVE NO PURPOSE! I'm just here to make yours and everybody else's lives harder! There's no reason for me anymore, you'd be better off without me.'

That's what's going on. This is what I have to strike to make it all better, I always knew nicotine patches were supposed to help you, but not like this. I cupped my hands around his face making him look back at me, then removed my hands to role up my left sleeve to reveal my patch to him.

He looked at it a minute, 'What's this?' He asked, finally he had stopped crying.

I sighed, "I didn't want you to know, but… when you were in a coma… I smoked. I smoked a lot. When your doctor said you'd wake up, I decided I'd quit. I haven't really quit yet, I'm working on it, but… if I didn't have you, I probably never would have decided to." I looked him in the eyes rolling my sleeved back down. "I need you, not just because without you I'd die a slow, forty-years-of-breathing-pain-filled death, but because you're also my best friend. I really care about you, more then the guys, more than Kenny, definitely more than the fat ass. I'd cross heaven and middle earth to make sure you were okay." He looked down a minute to hide his eyes from me that I could tell were again, close to tears. "Kyle," He looked up again, "I'd give up everything I have to be sure you're alright."

He bit his bottom lip trying to hold back the crying and hugged me tightly; it felt nice. We hadn't hugged in a few days. He was becoming old Kyle again.

He pulled away after what was too soon, 'I'm so sorry, I've been hiding behind my thought everyone would be better off if I were dead, I didn't stop to think about you. I'm sorry… I'm sorry…' He signed, he was crying again.

"_Shhhh_, _shhhh_, it's okay…" I whispered pulling him into another hug.

'Stan.' He tapped on my back with his finger.

"Yeah?" I asked while we continued to hug.

'I'm sorry, I'm really sorry.'

"It's alright! Sheesh!" I said smiling slightly.

'I… I don't think I can go back to school.' He tapped out.

I pulled away from him, what was he talking about, he was crying again, this time he was really sad, "Dude, what's going on? Why not?"

He sniffled a few times drawing in sharp breaths, 'I've got about five different people right now all saying next week back at school… they want me dead.'

"What the hell! When did this happen?" I yelled grabbing his shoulders.

'My cellphone! They're all connected to Cartman, he already tried today, he's going to be at it again next week, he's going to kill me…' He started hyperventilating then. 'I don't want to die! I mean… I did, but that was before! They all hate me, they treat me like shit, Cartman's going to kill me!'

"Kyle!" I yelled getting a hold of him and shook him good. "Listen to me, my parents will home school you, I'll keep him away from you, you don't have to worry about anything!"

He just shook his head, 'When he wanted me to suck his balls he broke into the Pentagon just to get me to do it! He helped resuscitate me JUST SO I'D SUCK HIS BALLS! He's got his mind set on killing me, he'd going to go through with it no matter what it takes! Even if he can't, that doesn't stop what everyone else is saying, it won't stop everyone else from hating me and making me feel like shit!'

I had to say something, no, I had to do something, I'd cross heaven and middle earth for him. Now I had to think of a way to get us out of this.

"Listen, Kyle," I said getting him to calm down putting my hands on his shoulders again, "fuck Cartman, fuck all those other guys, fuck the whole god damn school, they deserve it. They can go screw themselves, who cares what they say? They can think what they want to think, they can say what they want to say, it's hurts, but you shouldn't let it get to you. You know what I said earlier? It's just you, and me, and nobody else." He was looking at me, telling me to go on with my plan, oh crap, what was my plan? I have to come up with something quick. "We can run away." He seemed a little surprised at my plan, but he didn't have any objections, so I continued. "We can book a flight to anywhere in the country you want, we can use my dad's credit card, I know where he keeps it, we can go to the ocean. We can go to New York—"

'NO!' He mouthed. 'I mean, not New York… nothing near New Jersey, alright?' He asked.

I laughed a second, "Whatever you want. We can go to… to San Francisco." I smiled. "Just you and me, we can stay there our whole lives, leave everyone behind, we don't have to tell anyone where we're going. We can go home and book a flight for tomorrow morning right now."

He bit his lip trying not to smile out of control; 'You'd do that for me?' He asked back up at me. 'You'd leave all of South Park, steal your dad's credit card, and risk the whole country going in an uproar trying to find us… all for me?'

I smiled standing up, then helping him up afterward; "I'd do it twice."

We both climbed out of the hole, and I picked up my umbrella holding it above our heads as the rain kept falling.

'Well then, let's hurry home to book our flight.' Kyle signed over to me, actually smiling, not like before, this was real. 'I really need to get out of these clothes and take a shower, I think I've got some mud soaking through my underwear.'

I laughed a minute, good old Kyle, "I can't wait, you don't mind if I'm right there next to you the whole time, aye ginger pubes?"

He just pushed me playfully; 'You just won't let that die, will you?'

* * *

And know one ever thought the hole was dug by **and** for Kyle!


	14. Final Confessions

More background information on "Speechless": Originally back when writing the seventh or eighth chapter, I had the whole rest of the story played out in my mind, and this would originally be the last chapter, but around the tenth or eleventh or so I decided I had put it in the genre romance so I might as well add another chapter for all ya style fans. So, just remember, this could have possibly been the last chapter, but I also wanted to tie up some last things like "What does Bebe want to talk to Wendy about?" so that will be answered... next time. As for this chapter: secrets are discovered, feelings are realized, and—FINALLY!—happy endings are made. And just to piss you guys off to make you wait until it's revealed: by the end of the chapter, you WILL know who started the RUMOR~

* * *

Alright, I admit it. Friday when Kyle and I were in that ditch and I told him we'd run away to California I was only half serious, so I couldn't believe it when I found myself buying our tickets online the next morning. Sunday at two fifteen in the morning, only flight that day to San Francisco airport, I booked us a cab to the Denver airport and the only two seats left next to each other in first class. Normally I would just get us two seats away from each other but I needed to make sure Kyle was comfortable—and I'm sure being next to me promotes that—and the fact that it wasn't our money we were spending, so there was no guilt.

Saturday Kyle and I just spent together in his room packing his things, then went back over to my house later to get all of my stuff. The whole time neither of us said a word, but he was always just smiling over at me, especially when he thought I couldn't see. Maybe this was like how it was for Kenny and Butters after Ike and I prank called them. Butters tried ignoring Kenny, then amends were made and they were closer than ever. That… and they started dating.

Besides packing, we really didn't have anything else to do, I got on the iPad and got us a hotel room with my mom's credit card. That made me think of the fact that if our parents decide to cancel their cards we should carry some extra cash so I dug through my dad's underwear drawer, and sure enough, under his old briefs with I swear had to have at least twenty-thousand holes in them, found his secret cash stash and grabbed two thousand. One thousand for me, one thousand for Kyle. If my parents cancel their card, it should be enough to get us home, or at least fed for a year.

Before, late Friday night, we had stayed up all night talking about it, sitting on his bed in the dark, you know, just barely being able to make out each others faces. We agreed that no one was to know, not even Kenny or Butters, no one would know where we were, and to keep it that way, we both had to resist turning on our phones incase they traced them or something.

We talked that night for a long time, really late into the night. He was so relieved we were going, he was close to breaking down a few more times, just because, well, we were running away all the way to California together where we might actually never leave. That was a little bit of a scary part, of course I was willing to do it for him and his safety, but I don't think I could take an eternity of people smelling their own farts. Oh god, what if I start smelling my own farts? San Fran's can't really be like that, can they? Never in my life before had I ever heard of people smelling farts, none the less their own.

The point is, we talked for a long time, after there was a long silence, he looked so happy he would throw up, luckily he didn't. He just looked away from me for a minute to wipe his eyes and I hugged him. Then the conversation was over, I booked the flight in the morning, and all we had to do then was wait. That had to have been the hardest part, because not only was I anxious to not have to deal with Cartman, I wouldn't have to worry about Louis coming back either! We both didn't know anyone in San Fran, and there's enough to do there to keep us busy forever, I didn't think we'd have a problem.

I'm not really attached to my parents. I mean, I love them and all, but not enough to feel bad about leaving, or feel like I might miss them or something. Same went for the guys. They were my friends and all, but something told me I wouldn't be having emotional issues about leaving them behind either. I guess Kyle really was all I had all along, and I'm kind of glad. You know, I might not have everyone, but I have Kyle, and he's more than enough. So, saying that, I really shouldn't be feeling the need not to go as we grab clothes from my drawers and shove them in my bag… but I do. I don't know why, I just said I don't exactly give two shits about all the assholes I know, but something inside me made it hard to want to let go of South Park. I might never leave San Fran after we arrive, or maybe we'd just end up staying the night, but for some reason I didn't want to go.

Oh well, we had bought our tickets, so it was too late for that.

So, it was Saturday, we were just about done packing my clothes and stashing them in my closet so my parents wouldn't see, and Kyle was really starting to get fidgety. He kept running around looking at all my shelves for things we had missed, then insisted we go back to his house for a minute to pack his carryon because he forgot some things. I didn't mind, so we drove back over and he got his iPad which I later used to book our hotel, and the diary and some other stuff. Some books, his iPod—which I really didn't understand why he still had—and a turkey sandwich for when we got to the airport. After we went back to my place and hurried back up stairs so my parents wouldn't notice the bag he was carrying.

When we were safe from sight in my room, he threw the bag in with the others and flopped over onto my bed. Around that time it was about seven at night, my mom called us to dinner, and immediately after we retired to my room, got in bed, and fell asleep at around eight.

My alarm went off at midnight the next morning, October 23rd, I rolled over and shook Kyle awake who was amazingly still asleep.

"Dude, wake up! We have to get going!" I whispered loudly.

He opened his eyes sleepily looking at me, smiled, then sat up just to fall back down again against the pillow.

"Uhg," I groaned towards him then got up myself and went over to my drawers.

I opened them quickly, grabbing two pairs of jeans and threw one at Kyle, it landed on his face, he really didn't care. I got fully dressed, then he got up and did the same, I grabbed the three bags from the closet and Kyle got jackets and put his on as we walked quietly downstairs so to not wake my parents. It wasn't exactly necessary because they slept like the dead, but you can never be so sure. He gave me my jacket when I dropped the bags at the door then opened it for me and we went out to wait for the cab by the curb.

He didn't say a word as we sat there waiting, just looked over at me the whole time. Sometimes I'd look back over at him and he'd smile a little, so I would back. The cab eventually came, we hurried to throw in our bags and get in before my parents got the idea to look out their window and see us. When we got in and started off to the airport Kyle and I let out a collective sigh of relief. The hardest part was now over, all we had to do now was get on our flight and not crash—KNOCK ON WOOD. I looked around the cab a moment, nothing was made of wood, we're screwed.

Well, we made it to the airport without a scratch, so maybe I was just being over dramatic. I paid the cab driver and we dropped off our bags besides the carry on and went off to find the baggage-scanning thing. We got in line behind a few people and took off our shoes and stuff to put in those bins, he took his iPad from the bag and put it in there too and we slid the bin onto the conveyer belt. The people made us step through the scanner, when Kyle went through the alarm went off so they backed him up through it again and had him remove all other metal objets.

He looked over at me; 'I don't have any metal.' He signed.

"You're whistle." I suggested.

He took it off and handed it to the guy then proceeded to walk through and it didn't go off that time. Even after that they pulled us both over to one of those naked scanner things everyone had just put in. The ones that were on the news, I guess just because we were both pretty strong teenage boys they wanted to check if we were terrorists. I was first, the just had me stand in the middle with my arms extended and they started the scan.

It wasn't so bad, I didn't see exactly why people didn't like these things, they were just trying to protect people. Kyle refused to step in it for reasons I didn't know, so they just gave him the pat down. I was getting my shoes on with the bag on the other side of the scanner, when I was done I looked up at him, he was just looking over at me while the guy went down his left leg.

After, we went to find our departure lounge or whatever where Kyle ate his sandwich and I went off to find a Harbucks to get us some coffee and possibly a biscuit. I came back a minute later, we were actually at the airport, we were actually going on a plane to California, this was all happening. It was insane, and amazing at the same time, I mean, we could actually do this and get away with it! Right now at my house my parents were both probably asleep with no fathom this was happening. I gave him his cup then sat down next to him, I wondered how warm it would be in San Fran. Had to be warmer than South Park, I don't even think it snows there.

We were enjoying our coffee in silence, it seemed like we hadn't talked in a while. I guess it didn't really bother Kyle, I'm sure if I brought it up he'd say something like 'I'm not talking because I can't. Can't.' Oh well.

"Number 65 to San Francisco, your flight will be early. Thank you." The lady on the intercom said.

Kyle and I looked at each other, that was our plane. He smiled then went back to his sandwich. It wasn't much longer when they pulled the plane up to the building then called all of first class to board. I got up brushing myself off then helped up Kyle, I got the bag and he threw away the last of his sandwich and we got in line.

This was it, the moment we got on that plane we were not coming back. The lady checked our tickets and I followed Kyle over to the plane where we walked a few feet down the isle before he took his seat next to the window, row three. I hauled up the bag above my head and shoved it in the overhead compartment, ignoring the warning sign and everything, then closed it and sat down next to him.

'We're going to California!' He mouthed, he was smiling widely.

We watched as all the other passengers filed onto the plane and made their way past us. Kyle and I made a little game of ranking people of their "Could be a Terrorist" quotient, 1 to 10, 10 being the highest.

Many people walked by giving us looks as we signed to each other eyeing them up and down, there was this one really big guy with a beard we ranked as a 10, he glared at us then actually signed back, 'Fucking teenagers.' Kyle and I looked at each other; we stopped playing after that.

When the last of the people had gotten on and they closed the door, the pilot came on the intercom, "Hello, this is Stacy Caplin, I am your pilot this fine morning, it is currently clear in beautiful San Francisco, we should be there in about three hours. In the meantime, please, sit back, relax, and enjoy free beverages and breakfast. We will be showing an in-flight movie; Toy Story 3. Headphones are three dollars or you can use your own, thank you."

"Toy Story 3?" I said looking over at Kyle, he just shrugged.

The seat belt sign came on, so we buckled up and that safety video came on. There was this one really loud kid across the isle from me complaining to his older sister about how he wanted the window, yeah, this was going to be a long flight.

Eventually, after what had to be an eternity, the plane started moving away from the terminal and we were off to the runway.

'Dude, I hate takeoffs.' Kyle mouthed looking back at me as I tried to see over him out the window.

"Really? Not me." I said not exactly paying attention.

I looked over at him a minute, he was glaring at me then offered me his hand. I laughed once then took it and he went back to looking out the window. We were waiting in line behind around five other planes for the runway, while we were sitting there Kyle just randomly squeezed my hand, so I squeezed back. That led to the pattern of both of us just doing it quickly one after the other until Kyle and I were literally trying to cut off each other's circulation to the fingers. I swear if I hadn't have pulled out yelling "Holy shit! That fucking hurt!" it would have popped like Justin Bieber's head. Of course, that made all the people around us glare at me and Kyle had to cover my mouth to keep me from yelling out more profanities.

The kid sitting across the isle from me was now smiling widely and his sister had her palm to her face shaking her head towards the ground.

'Stan! The hell!' Kyle mouthed when I had turned back to him. 'You want to get us thrown off the plane?'

The sudden roar of the engines getting ready to race off down the runway we were now sitting at the end of gave him the answer that it was too late for anyone to be throw off, crap that terrorist sign language guy was seriously going to kill us all now. Fuck and I still hadn't knocked on any wood! Now I was actually hoping I might get thrown off.

Feeling the plane starting to jerk forward down the runway made Kyle immediately grab my hand again and look out the window as we left planet earth behind and went off to live in the sky for the next three hours or so. The second we were up in the air and the pilot came on telling us we could use our electronics—save cellphones and laptops—he sighed letting go of my hand and dug through his pockets looking for his iPod.

A while later after listening to his McDreidel albums they started the movie so he turned off the iPod, put it away, and plugged the headphones into the armrest jack. The kid across from me was quiet during the movie, he was watching too. Just a little after the credits rolled the pilot came back on telling us we were going to be landing soon.

I looked over at Kyle after the intercom had been turned off; he was looking up at the ceiling as the "fasten your seat belts light" was turned on.

"You need me told hold your hand again, dear?" I asked jokingly.

His eyes narrowed as they tore away from the light, 'Shut up, and yes, you do.'

I didn't like landings. Your ears hurt, you couldn't hear, and then when you touched down everything and everyone turned to Jell-O. When we were loosing altitude though, Kyle took out a pack of 5 gum, tropical flavor and handed me a stick. Chewing it as we fell helped a lot with the pressure, but I nearly choked on it once we hit the ground, it was a very loud "BANG!" accompanied by a sudden jolt and some banging above Kyle's and my head; not the gracefulest landing I had experienced. Once we had slowed down though, everyone turned back to normal—impatient and wanting to get the hell out of their seats—but we still had to pull up to the San Francisco terminal and wait a minute before Stacy Caplin turned off the seat belt sign. Then it was a race to get out.

Kyle was up before me, and as I fiddled with my seat belt, he got out into the isle and helped me. The second I was free he pulled me from my seat and I opened the overhead compartment quickly as the anxious people behind us tapped their feet waiting. The second that door was open though, Kyle's bag fell out opening itself spilling Kyle's junk all over the isle. The people behind us all groaned and we let them all by before proceeding to clean up our mess.

We both got on all fours, luckily in first class the isle was wide enough for both of us. Kyle was shoving some of his stuff back into his bag; I was taking care of his books and staking them next to me carefully. I was on the last one, it was the diary. It had fallen page open towards me; it was a diary entry from not too long ago. I picked it up slowly and closed it putting it on top of the pile, but not before glancing at the page, I only caught a few random words before I closed it: bricks, football, rumor, Stan, in love, fat ass, and true.

I didn't give any of it much thought, but as I looked back over at the rest of the stuff laid out over the isle, where the diary was there was a little crumpled green post-it note. I looked back over at Kyle, he was busy with something, so when I was sure he wouldn't see I snatched it up and shoved it in my pocket. Not too much later we were done and left the plane to go to the baggage claim where we got our other bags, then took the bus over to the rental car area and got a big black truck, kind of like mine I had back in South Park. We dumped the luggage in the back seats and I got behind the wheel with him riding shotgun.

"What do you want to do now?" I asked looking over at the clock. "It's still pretty early, we could wait until the cable car museum opens, or we could go to the Japanese tea garden or something. It's only like, five in the morning."

'Let's just check into the hotel.' Kyle mouthed looking straight out the windshield.

I leaned back in my seat still watching him, "Uh, alright, if you want to."

San Fran was actually kind of nice, there was no one out on the streets so early in the morning, but I didn't really get why Cartman hated it. And, there weren't as many hobos there as I had expected there to be, that, or they were all sleeping in trashcans or something.

Eventually I found our hotel, it was a pretty tall building, not around many other tall buildings, from the front it looked like it was entirely made of glass windows. I parked the car in the parking lot, then Kyle and I hurried inside to the lobby where I checked us in and got out key, it was more of a card actually. Eleventh floor, room seven. We stood quietly in the elevator all eleven floors, when we reached ours, Kyle ran out down the hall caring only his bag, leaving me to trail behind with the other two. He let himself in when he found our room, when I caught up I dropped our bags by the door closing it behind me.

"Oh my god." I said looking over the room; two beds, a small kitchen, a bathroom, a closet, a TV hanging up on the wall, and a balcony. They never said anything about a balcony, no wonder this place was so expensive. "Dude, did you see this?" I asked running over to it, Kyle came out of the kitchen and followed me as I opened the door and stepped out into the cold wind and ran over to the railing to look over. "Shit, Kyle, we're up really high!"

I looked back at him to see him roll his eyes as the wind blew his hair all over his face, 'Well, it is the eleventh floor.' He signed.

The air blowing against us wasn't nearly as cold as the winds we had in South Park, so we were immune as it pushed against us all the way up there. Kyle walked over next to me leaning forward over the railing looking straight ahead at the city before us. I watched him as his eyes traced over every skyscraper he could see, then as he got to the end of the city looking from right to left, his eyes locked with mine. I didn't feel the wind, I didn't see the city, and I didn't hear the police siren quietly going off in the distance, I was focused on Kyle, something was happening. He was concentrating below my eyes, arguing in his mind about something, for some reason, I just felt like we were getting closer or something. That feeling was turned off the second he tore his gaze from me and looked down at his hands that were gripping each other resting on top of the railing. Whatever it was he was thinking about, he wasn't going to tell me so I just patted his back then went back inside.

I really wanted to go out and do something that day, but Kyle didn't leave the balcony. Around eight or something, I turned off the TV and went out to tell him I was going to go out for a while, and that he could come with if he wanted. He signed a simple 'OK', then went back to gazing out over at the city.

I didn't get it, he was so happy before, we had gotten away from Cartman, we had ran away to San Fran together, but he was still upset about something. Obviously I had to do something about this, but as I went down elevator back to the first floor, I thought, maybe, this time it was something he was supposed to work out on his own. He'd have plenty of time to do that while I was out exploring the city.

I didn't get too far, mainly because I didn't want to take too much time getting back to the hotel, but also because I had never been to California, not to mention San Fran before, so I had no idea where I was going and didn't want to get lost. I was going down some street, it was probably two by then, I swear they had at least one Harbucks on each corner, not to mention tons of Jen & Berry's. That was when I spotted the little knickknack store.

I let myself in, by the door was an arranged assortment of San Fran snowglobes, I walked past those, over to the section I had seen in the window. There was a collection of little golden whistles on little silver chains. My thoughts: I HAVE TO GET ONE FOR KYLE. I grabbed—in my opinion—the shiniest one there and bought it. I was leaving the store; I shoved it into my pocket and was about to start walking again, when I felt something in there besides it. I pulled out whatever it was, it was a crumpled up little green post-it with some writing on it.

I flattened the thing out the best I could then read it silently to myself.

'Sure dude, you can tell me.' It said on one side in my handwriting.

I flipped the post-it over, definitely Kyle's handwriting on the back, 'I'm gay, the rumor was true, I love you.'

I stood there a second frozen looking at it; it all kind of made sense now—kind of. I dropped it purposely, then looked up over at our hotel building I could see was probably only a few blocks away. Top floor on the balcony, I thought I could just barely make out Kyle still standing there. That's why he was kind of upset. I needed to call him and talk about this. I had my cellphone in my hands a second later, the second after turning it on I flipped it closed and shoved it back into my other pocket, I couldn't call him about this, I couldn't even talk to him about this! If he wanted me to know, he would have told me, and after he tried to tell me and it failed if he still wanted me to know he would have told me again.

I just had to go back to the hotel and wait it out.

When I got back to the hotel room Kyle was coming back in from the balcony, so, for some unexplainable reason, I hid in the bathroom. Nice one, Marsh, I didn't know by "waiting it out" you meant _this_. But, really, what else was I supposed to do? Go in there and say, "Hey, I know you have a thing for me, maybe this should have been something we could have talked about before we ran away together?" To tell you the truth, I don't think I actually care. I mean, he loves me—and _not_ in the platonic way—and I don't really mind. Actually, it kind of felt… nice to be admired. Of all the people I know, I was kind of glad it was Kyle, because, well, if it were any of the other guys I would have probably ripped their nuts off, including Kenny.

I was about to leave the bathroom, but speak of the devil; my phone went off. Big surprise—it was Kenny.

I groaned looking at my caller ID, I wasn't in the mood, but I still didn't really want to be a dick, so I picked up, "What?"

"Dude, Stan, where are you! Everyone's looking for you and Kyle! No one has seen you since yesterday, what the hell is going on?" He yelled frantically.

"Now you care?" I asked bitterly.

"Stan, we don't have time for this, your parents are freaking out, people are scared, and everyone's asking questions! Now where the hell are you and Kyle!"

I sat up on the counter, "You're a real asshole, you know that right?"

"Do I have to repeat myself? WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU! Some people think you're dead, you know that right?" He yelled making me pull the phone away for a second. "Where are you!"

"You really are a fucking selfish dick." I seethed. "Is that all the matters to you? 'Where are we'? You don't care enough to ask me if I'm alright or why Kyle and I left? You don't care about us, you don't care about Kyle, all you care about is your stupid ass boyfriend!"

I heard him sigh, "Stan, I'm sorry, is Kyle there? Can I Morse him?"

I groaned looking over at the bathroom door, "He's busy." I lied.

"Then I'll just talk to you, Stan, what's up? Why did you leave?" He asked now that he was finally calmed down.

"That doesn't concern you, it's between me and Kyle, and I don't think he'd want you to know." I said narrowing my eyes.

"Stan, dude, you can tell me, you, Kyle, and I have always been best friends, we were always together, you can talk to me about it. It'll always be us three, please Stan."

I practically blew up then, "You're not our friend, you haven't been our friend since the moment he woke up! Even before that when the rumor was going around, you were never there for him like I was! You didn't care then, you didn't care when he was in a coma, and you don't care now! You're not our friend, I don't know you."

There was a long pause, then he sighed a long, sad sigh.

"Stan, please don't talk to me about the rumor, it's not relevant anymore—"

"NOT RELEVANT!" I yelled cutting him off. "Not relevant! You've got to be kidding me! Not relevant!" I laughed a bit, I'm pretty sure that alone freaked him out enough, so I continued. "It's the reason for all of this! That rumor was the reason Kyle was alone at the Synagogue, it was the reason Trent went after him! The reason he was in a coma, the reason he's mute, the reason all the kids at school gave him shit! It's the reason he was almost killed, and the reason he almost committed suicide! It's the reason I gave up my home and everything I had to make sure he'd be okay! It's that fucking rumor's entire fault for everything! It's the reason he was too afraid to tell me he's in love with me because Cartman would murder him!"

"He told you?" Kenny asked, he sounded seriously surprised.

"No! He didn't! I had to find out myself, that rumor screwed up his life beyond repair, just three fucking words and his whole life was ruined!" I yelled, it was a good thing the door was closed or Kyle might have heard me scream his secret to the world. "I swear, Kenny, if I _ever_ find out who started that rumor… I'm going Chuck Norris on them!" I screamed at him.

"Stan…" Kenny said so low it was almost a whisper. "I… I know who started the rumor."

I froze there for a moment, he knew? For how long? Why the hell didn't he ever tell me this before?

"Kenny, you know?" I asked after calming myself down. "How long have you known? Who was it?"

He sighed, "I always knew… they're a friend of ours… you have to understand though, I didn't tell you because I knew you'd kill them if you found out, but you can't be angry at them! …Trust me, if they knew what was going to happen to Kyle, they never would have said a word. You just have to understand…"

"Kenny… who is it?" I asked, he was silent. "Kenny, come on, please tell me, I **need **to know."

"Why!" He suddenly yelled. "So you can take out all your anger on them? What the hell is wrong with you!"

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me! They probably deserve it, do you have any idea what they put Kyle through?"

"Well… I…" He said trailing off.

"DO YOU! I'M GOING TO KILL THEM, I SWEAR, THEIR BLOOD WILL BE SMEARED ALL OVER THE SCHOOL GYM WALLS! I DON'T CARE WHO IT IS, THEY CAN'T GET AWAY WITH IT!"

"I DID IT!" He yelled over me making me freeze again.

"…W-what?"

"I started the rumor, alright? I did it!" There was a pause. "I… I had no idea it would get that bad… I just thought…"

I had to talk to keep myself from gasping continuously, "You just thought what? That no one would mind? That everyone would congratulate me? Everyone would be so happy for us? The two gayest little friends in South Park, now one of them finally realized there feelings, is that what you thought would happen? This is the really world! It doesn't work that way!"

"I was just trying to get you two together…"

I laughed then, I laughed a crazy laugh trying to keep myself from crying at the same time, "That really backfired, didn't it?"

"Stan, please, just…"

"Just what? Are you happy? You go to sleep every night in you comfy little bed in your outrageously huge house thinking about how horrible life is for Kyle all because of you, and are you happy? You have your boyfriend; you have the guys, are you happy!"

"NO!"

"GOOD!" I screamed back. "I can't believe… of all the people… this is lower than Cartman…" I paused. "You're dead to me. Don't call this number back."

With that, I hung up the phone and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn't remember crying as much as I had, there were tears still running down my face. I… I had to tell Kyle.

I walked out of the room, Kyle out on the balcony again looking at the city, I let myself out to him and stood next to him for the longest time before saying, "Kyle, I know who started the rumor."

By then the wind had stopped blowing and it wasn't cold, he got up and turned around to look me in the eyes, 'You know?'

He didn't look very happy to hear, he was kind of apathetic, anyway, I went on to tell him, "Kyle, Kenny started the rumor. I was talking to him on the phone and… he told me. Kenny started the rumor."

Kyle just turned back away from me to look back out over the city again, 'Yeah, I know.' He mouthed.

"Wait, what?" I asked running up closer to him to get him to mouth it again.

'I said I know.' He signed looking back at me. 'I always knew.'

With that, he left me on the balcony and went inside locking himself in the bathroom with his iPad, probably going to go learn new sign language words or something, I didn't follow him. He knew Kenny had started the rumor. He knew the whole time. I walked back into the room and plopped down on my bed to think some more. I hated Kenny. I hated him with all that I was. He was never there for Kyle in the hospital, he didn't think he was going to live, he never visited him, he never took the time to learn sign language, he never put up with taking him to lessons, and he sent all his time trying to help Kyle when he had his meltdowns. He wasn't there for him when he came back to school and all the kids gave him shit, he just stood there when Cartman tried to kill him the first time, and he didn't give up everything to run away with him to save his life! He didn't care enough to do any of that stuff when I did, and some how he was still our best friend!

I calmed myself down a minute, he was our best friend and wouldn't do anything for us because that's all we were; best friends, and we all had lots of best friends. Hell, even on some crazy low level Cartman was still our best friend, but no way in hell would I do all that for him.

I bet Kenny would do all that for Butters. But, I can't compare Kyle and I to them, they're in love, or, at least I think they are. He would never do all that shit for Kyle or I because all we were was friends, so why would I do it all for Kyle? All we were was friends, super best friends I'll add, but in the grand scheme of things they're the same, so what made us special? I know if it were me, if I were in a coma and lost my voice Kyle wouldn't hesitate to save my life and book the first flight out of South Park for me, but maybe that was because he was in love with me.

Because he was in love with me, I kind of repeated it in my head a second time. I spent two and a half years waiting next to him at the hospital, I spent every waking moment with him when he woke up, I learned sign language, I took him to his lessons even though it meant being raped by Louis. I was there for him when the kids picked on him for being mute, secretly gay, then being out, and I saved him from being beaten, killed, and committing suicide. I started new lives for us in San Fran leaving everyone behind. I was okay with him being gay, and I was okay when I found out he was in love with me. There were only two possible explanations:

1. I was fucking ballistic and high the whole time it all happened

or

2. I was fucking in love with my best friend.

Yeah, probably the second one.

Apon my amazing discovery, I shocked myself so much I accidentally yelled "HOLY FUCK!" out loud, making Kyle run out of the bathroom.

'What? What's going on?' He mouthed looking around the room frantically, I swear I felt my stomach churning violently: yup, definitely the second one.

"Oh, uh, nothing, I just… scared myself." I said scratching the back of my neck looking down and to the side.

'Uh, alright.' He said smiling, then left out to the balcony again, I swear, what the hell was it with him and that balcony?

Holy shit, I really loved him. About fifteen or so years it took me to figure that out, man was I slow. I had to do something, definitely waiting around any longer for him to confess to me was going to be pure hell, there had to be some way I could go about talking to him about it, I mean, I liked him, he liked me, doesn't that mean we should be together by now or what? As much as it pained me to do, I had to call Kenny, because, really, who else was I supposed to talk to about this.

I punched in his number, I wasn't so angry now, so maybe we could work something out.

"Stan?" He asked, it sounded like he was really sorry for earlier.

"Uh, hi Kenny, I'm… sorry I yelled at you, I need some advice." I said looking over at Kyle through the glass door.

"Oh, what about?"

I looked around a minute, "Well, about Kyle, I mean… I really like Kyle, but I'm not really sure what I should say to him."

"Oh, so is this about getting him out on a date, or getting him in bed?" He asked automatically in a better mood.

I laughed, "No one can stay mad at you Kenny, I swear, especially me."

"Woe, woe, woe, I thought you just said you like _Kyle_, I got a boyfriend, thank you."

I smiled, "How do I get him to confess to me?"

There was a pause, "Really? That's what you want my help on? I'm more of a gives ideas of sex position are best to use kind of guy, you might want to go to Craig on that one."

"Are you maybe hinting something about Craig's sexuality?" I asked trying to hold back a chuckle.

"He did kiss you, didn't he?"

"Hey, how do you remember that?"

"I know people, anyway, the thing is, you really don't need to ask anyone about getting him to tell you, it's pretty easy to come up with a few ways on your own, you know." He said.

I raised an eyebrow, "Really? Now if it's so easy, you come up with an idea."

"Oh, here's a good one: ask him!"

"Ask him if he's in love with me? Dude, I could have came up with that!"

"Exactly! And no, you have to be more subtle than that, you have to ask him something like, 'Hey, is there something on your mind?' or 'You look like you're really thinking hard about something, wanna tell me?'."

"Dude, you're a genius, thank you!" I sighed smiling.

"Yeah, I try, now what are you doing still talking to me? Got get him!"

"Alright, I'll talk to you later Kenny, I'll tell you what happens, bye."

"Bye." He said, then I hung up.

I put down my phone on my bed and sneaked over to the door, it was probably nine now or something, it was dark in the sky and the city was all lit up. The wind had come up again, blowing it lightly around my face as I closed the door loudly behind me making Kyle look over his should back at me and smile. I walked over next to him and looked out over San Fran with him, it was really neat, we could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance to the very right.

"Hey Kyle, I'm glad we came out here together." I said starting a conversation.

'Yeah.' He mouthed still smiling.

I pulled on his shoulder making him turn towards me, "Dude, you learn any new signs when you were in the bathroom with the iPad?" I asked.

'A few.' He mouthed looking down at him feet.

"That's cool." I looked back at the city again, then at him. "You spend a lot of time out here, why?"

'Oh, you know, thinking about stuff, about people, you know.' He signed.

I turned over to him again, he did the same looking at me, there was a long pause of us just staring at each other, "Kyle, is there something you wanted to tell me?"

He looked away a second biting his lower lip, then looked back up at me holding up his hand forming a single symbol. It was like "Y" but his first finger was also up, like those signs people make in the crowds of rock concerts as they headbang to the music, his palm was facing me.

I laughed a second looking at his hand, it was obviously a new word he had learned, "What does that mean?"

He straightened himself so we were eye level with each other and he stared directly at me, I didn't feel the wind, I didn't see the city, and I didn't hear the police siren quietly going off in the distance, I was focused on Kyle.

He smiled slightly giving me all his attention the mouthed three words slow and clear, 'I love you.'

I smiled wider and mouthed back, because, really, what else could I do?

'I love you too.'


	15. Last Laughs

I really didn't need to extend the story all the way till the 26th of October, but I wanted to because that's my birthday! Alright, down to business, the hardest part of writing this whole story: definitely coming up with the names for the chapters.

* * *

We both didn't really know what to do after our little announcements. Kyle and I were still standing out on the balcony just staring at each other, because, well, we both didn't really know what to do after our little announcements. Eventually we broke the gaze to look out at the city; he just slipped his arm around my shoulder making my stomach tighten. I instinctively slapped my hand across my mouth, Kyle looked over at me worried and wondering what the hell was going on. I had to tare myself away from him to lean over the railing to puke, I think I might have hit someone.

The rest of the night we did all the little touches, anything to get me to throw up, as I ate some tamales I had picked up earlier for our dinner. Basically we made a game; Kyle would try getting within two inches of my face, which we found was our limit, and then I'd throw up over the balcony and we'd see what I hit. No points for the ground, 10 points for and animal, 20 points for a person, and 50 points if I made it all the way across the ally into the lot next to the hotel.

The tamales were just so I could reload ammo. Plus, they were pretty good.

We finally went in around midnight, we got dressed into more comfortable clothes, the he slipped into his bed closer to the balcony and left the blinds open. Kyle turned out the light before I could get into my own bed, but the glow of the city and the moon made everything easy to see. I stood between the two beds, mine was made and neat, Kyle occupied his, he was turned away from me looking out at the city. He rolled over when he felt me get in next to him.

"What do you want to do tomorrow?" I whispered, out faces only two inches from each other.

'Who cares? I'm still focused on right now.' He mouthed smiling at me, then closed his eyes and put a hand on my shoulder before falling asleep.

He wasn't really asleep… or maybe he was… I couldn't tell. I fought my urge to run over to the bathroom and bend over the toilet, that is; I tried to keep my vile down as I inched closer to him and pecked his lips just for a second—because seriously if it lasted any longer we'd have to get new clothes, take a shower, and use to other bed, but… a shower together didn't sound that bad…

I was right when I thought he wasn't really asleep, as I pulled back I caught the ends of his mouth slightly curl upward.

I think Kyle might have been a little embarrassed as he walked down the street following my as I ran around stopping to look in all the windows. We went around all day until it became late, we found the Japanese Tea gardens over near the museum of natural science or something, but it was closed due to some rodent infestation or something, so we kept walking until we got to a flight of concrete stairs. We were walking along side a small lake once we reached the top, it was getting dark so no one else was there, a sign read "Stow Lake", I guessed that's where we were.

We sat silently on a bench looking out over the dark water in the almost dark, there were lamp posts but they were broken, so there was just the moon and some distant lamps far away to light up the lake. Kyle and I weren't holding hands, we weren't staring at each other, we sat on either ends of the bench with a good foot between us, he was looking out across the water, I was watching his eyes waiting for him to do something.

'You know, sometimes I forget I can't talk.' He mouthed still not looking at me. 'I feel like everything is the way it should be, I can talk, I can yell, I can whisper, I forget my limitations and I feel happy. …Then I remember… and it all goes away.' He looked at me then. 'I really don't care what the guys back home think, it's just…' He looked back at the lake. 'I'm always thinking about it, always thinking; there's nothing left. I can never speak again. Never, anything will change that. I can never say I never want to be with you, I can never get married and say "I do", and I can never tell you I love you. I can't say it, and I never will.'

I pulled my legs up onto the bench and sat on them making myself face him, then pulled on his shoulder until Kyle looked back over at me, I smiled, "You don't have to say anything, I already know."

He looked down at his hands trying to hide a smile, 'I want to—' He mouthed, but my phone cut him off.

"Holy fuck, who the hell would call now? God dammit." I said pulling it out, it seamed all day I had been getting texts from everyone in my grade but I deleted them, couldn't they take a hint by now I didn't want to be bothered? "It's Butters." I said looking at the caller ID, that meant something serious had happened. "Should I answer?" I asked Kyle, it did interrupt him, didn't it?

He nodded, I flipped open my phone and he pressed his ear against the other side of my phone to hear too, "Butters? What's up?"

"Cartman killed him!" He yelled, it sounded like he was crying. "He killed him at school!"

"Butters, calm down, what are you talking about? Who did Cartman kill?" I asked frantically, Kyle looked pale.

"Kenny! He killed Kenny!"

'You bastard!' Kyle mouthed.

I was a little shocked, why would Cartman want to kill Kenny besides the fact that he was banging Butters? "What? Why?"

There was a pause and some sobbing in the background, "Before school… Kenny called everyone together, everyone in the grade, everyone was listening. He told everyone he started that rumor from a long time ago, the one about Kyle liking you? He told everyone he started it then Cartman attacked him! He had a gun in his pocket and it accidentally shot Kenny in the stomach!"

I paused for a moment; "Kenny told everyone he started the rumor?"

"He told everyone, he took on Cartman, he supported you guys, the whole shabang! Cartman killed him! …Oh, oh god, I think I'm going to… be sick…"

"Dude, was Wendy there? What did she do!" I asked.

"She wasn't at school, she wasn't there."

That was weird. Wendy always came to school when Cartman was there, even when she was really sick, "Woe, did something _happen_ to her—not that I **care** or anything." I assured.

He paused a minute, "I don't think so, she and Bebe just didn't show I guess…"

I looked back over at Kyle; he just shrugged.

"Bebe wasn't there either?" I asked, Butters just continued crying.

"I don't know! I didn't see her, I saw Cartman kill Kenny!"

I sighed, "Butters, calm down, he'll be back, you're acting like Tweek. Anyway, why don't you just get some hot cocoa and take a breather, alright? It'll be alright, I have to go, but, it'll be okay, okay?"

"Okay." Was all he said, then he hung up with out saying goodbye.

I leaned back against the back of the bench putting my phone back in my pocket then stared out at the lake again wide-eyed. Kyle was gazing over at me worriedly, he put a hand on my knee and shook it trying to get my attention. Kenny stood in front of everyone and told the truth, he stood up against Cartman and Damien and everyone else who outcast us, that was braver than what Kyle and I did. All we did was run away like cowards, he fought, even after we had our argument. I had stood up for Kyle, but never up to _Cartman_ and the whole _grade_, he's the brave one… and the stupid one… but _still_. So, maybe that means even though he's only our friend he'd risk his life for us. He wasn't in love with us, hell that'd be creepy, but he still did it. He could have learned sign language, he could have stood up for Kyle, he could have ran away with him. Maybe, I was never really in love with Kyle; maybe Kyle was never really in love with me. I looked back over at him, and I thought; maybe, but it doesn't really matter anymore, because we're in love **now**.

'Stan, you alright?' Kyle mouthed, he was really worried about me, wasn't he?

I smiled, "Yeah, dude, never better. So," I turned to face him again, this time we were both sitting with our legs curled under us, his hands resting on his knees were barely touching mine that were in the same position, "what were we talking about before that dick called?"

Kyle thought for a moment, 'I was mouthing about how I can never talk again, and… I think you were trying to calm me down.'

I groaned clenching my eyes closed, "Can we just skip to the part where I make you feel better? All these emotional moments with you can't possibly be good for our mental health."

He smiled mute laughing; 'I… wanted to ask you something.'

"Uh, sure, what is it?" I asked leaning forward slightly.

He let out a deep breath; 'I want to go home.'

"Oh." I said simply, then stood up brushing myself off then extended my hand to pull him up too. "Alright, let's go, maybe we can get something to eat on the way there."

Kyle grabbed my hand and pulled me back down on the bench, 'Dude, you know that's not what I meant.' He mouthed looking me in the eye.

"Eh…" I said shrugging. "You want to leave already? Why? Are you sure you want to do back so soon? N-not that I have anything… **wrong** with that."

Kyle crossed his arms narrowing his eyes at me, 'I'm not a fucking girl, dude, you don't have to act like I'm always about to break.'

"Sorry." I said scratching the back of my head awkwardly.

'I don't know, I just feel like… it's going to be different if we go back now, like instincts or some weird omen or something, something wants me back, and… I miss South Park.' He mouthed.

"Me too." I admitted.

'So…' He mouthed, we had both gone back to sitting on the bench normally, 'you want to go get some Tai food then book a flight back to Denver when we get back to the room?'

I looked back over at Kyle; he was waiting for my answer, "Yeah." I said then pulled on his shoulder. "But first," I leaned forward and kissed him for a second, still trying to work on the whole 'puking' thing, apparently it wasn't enough, because as I pulled away Kyle grabbed my jacket collar and pulled us back together.

Call me un-romantic, but the whole time I had my eyes open. I remember back in middle school, we had all watched this one episode of Drake & Josh, the one with the new girlfriend and they test to see if they're good kissers by tying cherry stems in their mouths with their tongues. We were 13 and stupid, Cartman brought a giant jar of pickled cherry's one day to school and everyone got to try it out. I ended up braking mine, Kenny choked on his, Cartman tied it with his hands then tried to convince us he did it, we all witnessed Kyle do it, twice. The second time was just to prove it; two little cherry stem knots. After he took both of them at once and UNTIED them in his mouth. He told us later he watched an internet video on how to do it, we were all very impressed—except Cartman who took one of his fake cherry knots and untied it behind his back, he was so jealous.

The point of that story was when Kyle decided to slip me the tongue I was not disappointed. I was looking at him because my eyes were still open and his was less than an inch from my face, so there was nothing else in my view. He opened his eyes a little looking at me looking at him, then immediately looked right at the lake braking us apart.

'HOLY FUCK!' He mouth pointing across the lake at a little white light that quickly went out.

"How is fuck holy?" I asked after the light was gone. "What was that?"

He looked back at me, 'I think I just saw the ghost of Kenny.'

I laughed, "I wouldn't be surprised."

We left the park then, I convinced Kyle we should stay a few more days, he agreed to one, so I booked a flight back on the 25th for five in the afternoon, that meant we'd be home by around ten. He didn't want me to tell our parents, but I secretly called mine that night after he was asleep. They didn't pick up, I was glad for that, I didn't tell them where we were, I just said Kyle was with me, we were safe, we were coming back on the 25th late. Kyle couldn't be too angry at me for that.

The next day we spent running around doing all the stuff we could think of before packing up our stuff and dropped off the car. We were running through the San Francisco airport trying to find our gate, our flight was on time this one, we were the ones who were late. We were actually almost **too** late, we had first class again, they were at the last person and were about to call coach when we arrived and got in line.

'I knew we should have skipped Japan Town!' Kyle mouthed as the lady took my ticket and ripped off one end handing it back to me.

"We're here now, aren't we?" I asked grabbing him as he got his ticket back and ran down the ramp with him behind me.

Kyle put his carry on _under_ his seat this time; basically the greatest idea I ever heard of. I got the window on the way back I he had to look over me to see out, but he was taller than me so it wasn't exactly too hard.

'Dude, I just realized,' He mouthed getting my attention, 'I'm afraid of airplanes, take offs, flying, landings and South Park.'

I raised an eyebrow and smirked, "You want me to hold your hand the whole time?" I asked taking it before he could say anything else.

'Maybe something else too…' He mouthed looking back around down the ail as the other people got on.

"Hello, this is your pilot speaking, it is currently cloudy in Denver, Colorado, we will arrive there in about three hours, remember to set your watches for the time change. We will provide with free beverages and snacks, alcohol is $5 and will require an ID. Our in-flight movie today will be Shane Acker's "9", headphones are $3, you are free to use your own. Our flight will commence shortly, thank you." The pilot said in a more masculine voice than our last pilot, Kyle and I looked at each other.

"Are all these pilots forced to say the exact same thing?" I asked.

Kyle shrugged, '9?' He suggested taking out his headphones.

"Yup."

We watched for a while, by the end of the movie Kyle had fallen asleep against me. I didn't want to wake him up, but we were supposed to land soon, and that wasn't going to happen if I didn't have any gum. I shook him a little for a minute until he woke up, Kyle can sleep through anything, I swear.

"Dude, wake up, I need some gum." I said still trying to wake him up.

He yawned, then handed me his pack, put up the armrest between us and curled up his legs under him pushing me against the side of the plane then went back to sleep. I wouldn't have minded, but Kyle was crushing me trying to use me as his pillow/whole bed, it wasn't too comfortable.

I had gotten him fully awake as we were descending, our landing this time was better than the first one, and we didn't have to worry about the overhead compartment, so we got out quickly.

We picked up our bags from the baggage claim then got a cab back to South Park. We stopped a block from my house, Kyle didn't want to face his mom first, and neither did I, so we agreed to go home to my house. It was around eleven; we were walking down my street in the almost dark besides the few street lamps we passed. He was pulling his bag and carrying the carry on, I had my own bag.

"Dude, you okay?" I asked once we were only a few houses from mine. "You look pale."

'I'm fine.' He assured me. 'I just want to get home.'

We walked quietly up my driveway trying not to be too loud; maybe we could just talk to my parents in the morning? None of the lights were on, so I figured they were asleep. Kyle got up to the porch before me, I was behind him getting out my key then unlocked the door letting us in.

"Maybe if we're quiet they won't hear us coming in, then we could just talk to them in the morning." I whispered loudly, in the dark I saw Kyle nodding.

I was taking off my coat to put in the closet when the light from the living room went on, I screamed a little out of surprise, I think Kyle would have too if he could. We both turned around to see my parents and his parents standing in the middle of the living room. We all stood there looking at each other, I don't think anyone blinked, and I'm sure no one was breathing.

"Kyle—" Mrs. Broflovski said quietly taking a step forward extending her arm to him.

Kyle made a brake for the door, but I caught him preventing him from running, "Kyle, calm down, dude."

Kyle looked at me and pulled himself back, then looked over at our parents.

He sighed, 'Let's get this over with.' He mouthed.

"Alright." I said grabbing his wrist and pulled him over to the couch in our living room and took a seat.

The adults were looking at us again, Kyle was looking to the side, I was watching them to see when they were going to start yelling at us; they never did. His parents ran up to him and hugged him; Kyle's mom started crying. My mom came over to me then and pulled me to my feet and hugged me.

"Oh, Stanley, we're so sorry! We were so scared!" She said grabbing my head looking off into space. "Where did you go? How did you live? Why did you leave us!"

I pushed her away, Kyle was trying to do the same as his parents said similar things to him, "Mom, I'm tired." I said pulling Kyle away from his parents and he stood next to me keeping his distance from all of them. "Kyle's tired, we just want to get to bed, we can talk about this in the morning."

My mom looked like she was close to tears, but she shook it off, "A-alright boys, go ahead to your room, We'll talk in the morning."

"Thanks." I called back and I pulled Kyle up the stairs to my room, they seriously need to be reminded of personal space, I think they traumatized Kyle.

I closed and locked my door behind me and Kyle ran over and flopped down on my bed, 'You seriously look nothing like Jesus, you know that right?' He Morsed.

"Where did that come from?" I asked sitting down next to him.

He shrugged, 'I just felt like giving an observation.'

"Well, I'm kind of glad I don't look like Jesus, so… uh… thanks." I laughed. "You know, I think you told me I don't look like Jesus before once."

'Really?' He mouthed falling back against my pillow with his hands behind his head. 'Oh well, it's true.'

"You know," I spoke up after half a minute, "you don't look like Jesus either."

Kyle cracked one eye open to give me a weird look, 'Uh, thanks.'

"You are _very_ welcome."

He sat up punching me lightly in the arm, we sat there for a few minutes in silent, it was nice. All of the sudden Kyle just leaned over and hugged me.

"Dude, what's wrong?" I asked.

He looked up at me smiling, 'Thank you.'

"All I said was you didn't look like Jesus, it's not really something to be that excited over." I admitted looking up at the ceiling a bit.

He pulled me back against the bed so we were laying next to each other, 'No, thanks for finding me.' I gave him a confused look so he continued. 'Thanks for taking me to California then back.'

"Oh. That. Well," I turned over to look at him, "it's no big deal, you don't need to thank me."

Kyle turned towards me then, 'No big deal? Dude, you took us to California and back! You would have totally done anything I asked! Are you sure you don't have low self-esteem?'

I thought a moment, "Well, what kind of thanks did you have in mind?"

He rolled his eyes then inched closer to me to kiss me, 'Yup, that should cover it.' He mouthed afterward.

"Really?" I asked. "There isn't anything else?"

He thought a moment, 'Nope, not really.'

"Nothing you can think of? Nothing at all?" I asked again.

'Well, there was _one_ thing.' He mouthed turning back onto his back to look up at the ceiling. 'We could be together.'

"What, what?" I asked turning back on my side looking at him strangely. "What do you mean could? I thought we already were together."

Kyle looked back over at me weirdly now, 'Well, you never said anything about it, so… we're together now?'

"Yeah!" I said laying back down. "I like you and you like me, doesn't that mean we should at least be dating by now?"

He laughed, 'So the twenty-fifth of October is our anniversary?'

I looked over at the clock on my dresser; 12:08, "Nope, it's Wednesday."

'So the twenty-sixth of October then?' He asked still looking up at the ceiling. 'Is that official? You have to ask me.'

"Wow, you really are a romantic, aren't you? Maybe we should get this in writing." I said non-seriously. "Duh it's official."

'You got to ask me.' He signed with his eyes closed trying to fight a smile.

I groaned, "Dude, you wanna go out?"

'Not convincing enough.' He mouthed.

"You just want me to skip to the marriage proposal?" I asked.

'Maybe, just ask already!'

I groaned again, "Kyle Broflovski, will you be my boyfriend?"

He immediately jumped up and pointed a finger right at my face, 'Well, it's about time, Stanley Marsh!' He mouthed. 'You kept me waiting a whole four years or so!'

"Is that including the coma?" I asked, he dropped his hand.

Kyle just put his hand to his chin thinking for a minute, 'We need some kind of certificate so we can prove we're actually together.'

"What? Are you afraid you might still be asleep?" I asked crossing my arm smiling.

He just turned his head around to glare at me, 'Yes!'

"Wow, you've had a lot of time to fantasize about this, haven't you?" I asked leaning back against the wall my bed was up against. "You know, I think I actually have something." I said holding up a finger to tell him to wait a minute then grabbed my bag from the floor and tore through it until I found my old pair of jeans and shoved my hand in the pockets. "Here we go!" I said pulling out the golden whistle on the chain. "Here's your proof, happy now?"

He grabbed it from me taking off his plastic one and put on the new one; 'You were planning on doing this sometime soon?' He asked.

"It was on my To Do List."

He sat back down on my bed; 'I'm tired, I'll see you in the morning.'

"Night, babe."

'Don't even think of calling me that. I'm still Kyle. No stupid nick-names.'

"Whatever you say, Kyle."

The next morning I woke up Kyle was already downstairs eating breakfast with my parents; he had told them that the reason we left was too emotionally dragging on him he wasn't ready to talk to anyone about it. It was either the best lie I ever heard or I had no idea how bad it was for Kyle. We left for school early that morning, nothing and school could get us down today.

Everyone was staring at us as we entered school grounds, we weren't holding hands or anything romantic, we had decided to keep that a secret, they were just kind of surprised we were back after being MIA for the past three days.

We avoided everyone, everyone who normally talked to us or anyone who had shunned us. It was pretty easy; we had dodged everyone until lunch. Kyle and I were sitting at our own table alone, Craig's table was in our direct view, everyone over there was watching us. Craig, Tweek, Token, Clyde, Marjorine, and Cartman who was on the very end of the bench furthest from the rest of them, Wendy was absent that day too. I could tell they were talking about us, I saw them mouth our names in everyone of their sentences. I knew they were sorry, but they were cowards, they wouldn't do anything as long as Cartman was in control of them. They seriously needed a miracle.

Everyone looked over at the cafeteria doors as they were slammed open, Wendy and Bebe were standing in the doorway. Even Kyle and I were watching, Wendy wasn't wearing her usual camouflage jumpsuit, she had a skirt and a tank top and her old purple hat. She and Bebe had their arms intertwined. The stomped straight up to Cartman, who by now had turned around, Wendy let go of Bebe's hand and slapped him hard across the face.

"You son of a bitch, Cartman!" She yelled at him in her old voice. "Burn in hell!"

With that everyone's mouths were hanging open including Kyle's and mine. She and Bebe linked arms again then walked straight over to our table and sat down with us.

"Kyle, I'm so sorry." Wendy pleaded looking him in the eyes; she looked like she was going to cry. Why was everyone crying recently? "I'm so sorry. For everything! Please forgive me."

Kyle looked over at me, he was as surprised as I was, 'Tell her I said it's alright.' He mouthed.

"You sure you want to do that?" I asked, he nodded. "Wendy," She looked over at me, this was real, she was sorry. One weekend plus a few days and somehow Bebe turned her back into her old self, "Kyle forgives you."

"What the hell, Wendy! You crazy bitch!" Cartman yelled from his seat, next to him Marjorine picked up his tray and back pack and got up from the table and sat with us too. "Butters, the fuck!"

He sat down next to Wendy and dropped his stuff, "I'm sorry, I should have came earlier."

Then Craig got up and he started walking over to our table too.

"Craig! You asshole!" Cartman yelled, Craig just flipped him off. "What the hell are you doing?"

He sat down next to me on the end of the bench, "Something I should have done a long time ago, fat shit." He said glaring.

Tweek immediately followed him sitting next to Bebe across from him, that just left Token and Clyde. They were the ones who always laughed at Cartman's jokes, of everyone who sat at that table they were the closest to Cartman. Token stood up first.

"They're right, come on Clyde." He said walking over to our now kind of crowded table, he stopped halfway and looked back at Clyde who hadn't moved. "Clyde?"

He had his head down looking at the table.

"Dude, Clyde, don't listen to those assholes, they're just a bunch of fag hippies." Cartman said trying to persuade him into staying.

Clyde looked up that moment, he looked up seething at Cartman, "You're a piece of work, you know that?" He yelled in a low voice. "They're my friends!" He stood up from the table then. "You're not my friend, you're not their friend, you're nobody!" With that he caught up to Token and they sat down with us.

I looked over at Kyle, he wasn't looking at me, he was looking over me at Cartman who was seriously about to pop a blood vessel and was now screaming out profanities like he had Tourettes or something. After someone finally got the principal they carried Cartman off to the office Kyle looked at me, he was smiling widely.

'I guess Cartman finally got his comeuppance?'

"I guess he did."

The rest of the day we stopped being so distant from everyone. After school we were talking with some of the guys and Wendy and Bebe, they had just told us they were in a relationship. That made Kyle and I look at each other, the two sets of best friends; who knew? Maybe we could all go on a double date sometime together.

Eventually they said they had to go because Wendy volunteered at the animal shelter and they didn't want to be late, now I was thinking Bebe was some kind of wizard to have gotten Wendy back so quickly. Anyway, they guys left shortly after that too, they were all joining Token's study group at the park and they need to get there so they could study from three all the way until seven. Kyle and I were about to leave as well; we were going around the back of the school to the parking lot when we passed the goth kids.

They were leaving, the tall one was saying something about a poetry slam, they left in the opposite direction Kyle and I were walking in, but Louis didn't move. He was watching me as his friends left him behind, I stopped a minute and Kyle walked on a head a few yards before looking back at me. Louis was leaned up against the side of the building with his cigarette in his hand; he looked at me, then Kyle, then back to me. I could tell he knew we were together now, he knew we weren't just friends. I expected him to run over and try to stab Kyle or something, but he just smiled at me. Not the creepy smile like before, he was happy for us. He stood there leaning against the wall smiling, then as his tall friend called his name for him to catch up to them he gave me a thumbs up, got up from leaning against the school, and left following them.

'What was that about?' Kyle asked walking back to me trying to get me to go.

"I don't really know," I said, then found myself smiling a little, "but I don't think he's going to bother us anymore."

We drove back to my house in silence, Kyle was looking down at his hands with a small smile, he knew at my house my mom was at work and my dad had some geologist project he was working on in the basement, so he wouldn't be bothering us. It was still the twenty-sixth, our 0-year anniversary; we wanted to celebrate.

I pulled up the car in the driveway; we hurried up to the front door and I let us in. He ran upstairs to my bedroom and jumped onto the bed, I followed closing the door behind me.

"What do you want to do first?" I asked throwing my backpack against my closet door.

'Turn on the radio and role the dice.' He said reaching for my alarm clock that had a radio.

On came 'Raise You Glass' which they play way too much, but it would have to do. I sat down on my bed next to Kyle; he was sitting up now waiting for me to do something.

"So… uh, what exactly is the dice?" I asked not really knowing what else to say.

'Oh, you know—'

"No, I really don't." I said interrupting him.

He laughed, 'It's like dice that have activities on them, like… well, you get the idea.' He said

"Yeah, I think I do." I admitted. "What did you have in mind? It is our 0-year anniversary."

'Please, don't ask me that, I have no idea, what do people normally do on their anniversary's? Don't they just get each other gifts? I don't have a gift!' He mouthed looking down frustrated.

"Well," I said grabbing the whistle around his neck I gave him, "I already got you something. You got anything for me?"

'I just told you I don't have anything!' He mouthed looking up at me.

"Just make something up." I suggested smiling.

He stood up walking over to my shelf pulling at his hair, 'I can't! I don't know anything about gifts or anniversaries or dating, what am I supposed to do? I could write a haiku or something, do you want a haiku?'

I got up at that point and came around from behind him snaking my arm around his waist to shut him up, "Just kiss me, genius."

'I could do that.' He mouthed thinking it over nodding slightly.

"Well then, let's get to it already!" I said loudly walking back over to my bed and sat down on the end.

He followed me and sat down next to me brushing some hair behind his right ear, I didn't bother fixing anything, I just leaned forward and kissed him. Not sloppy or anything, no tongue, just soft and pink, kind of like how a first kiss should be. The song on the radio switched, "Oh, here we go again, I think I wanna be more than friends…" I raised my hand up to run through Kyle's hair then I put it on his forehead because… well… actually, I have no idea why I did, I just put my hand on his forehead. He opened his eyes then to give me a weird look, he was confused why I had just done that, I was confused too. He looked over past me a second, his eyes wide and immediately broke away from me.

I quickly turned around to see what had surprised him; my dad was standing in my doorway leaning against the doorframe with a bottle of beer in one hand. He stood there just staring at us taking a sip from his beer once before talking.

"You're using condoms, right?" He asked.

I looked back over at Kyle who for the third time this had happened was trying not to laugh, I guess it was pretty funny now. I looked back at my dad, well, we _were_ democrats and he _did_ support us… that meant there was only one last thing to do. Because, really, what else could I do?

"SHUT UP, DAD!"


End file.
